To know God is to know the human person since the mystery of God is the human person. Clare’s focus on the person of Jesus Christ was not simply devotional. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ she saw the nobility of the human person. She perceived that when we come to live in God and allow God to live in us, Incarnation is renewed. Every act of the human person then becomes an act of God insofar as God’s love and the person’s love become one in will and desire.
The poverty of God, seen in the cross, is an invitation to enter into the great mystery of God’s love. Just as the cross signifies the drama of God’s involvement with us, so, too, we are called into the drama of transformation in Christ. Poverty is not only the starting point of relationship with God, but it is the deepening of poverty that enables the seeker to enter more deeply into the mystery of God. How one comes to this level of poverty that leads to transforming love is the genius of Clare’s spiritual insight.
—from the book Clare of Assisi: A Heart Full of Love
by Ilia Delio, OSF
