In the beginning, Saint Clare embraced Poverty with strick rigidity and deprivation in her youthful fervor of total abandonment. She fasted so severely that her sister's feared for her life, and Francis himself had to command her to eat something each day. Her grasp of poverty in youth was more of stern denial than an embrace of God's will. But as she grew in wisdom and grace, like Saint Francis she began to view things differently. Merely to deprive oneself was not true poverty - for one could be as proud of one's poverty as one could be of riches. No, true poverty meant that one was totally and completely dependent upon God. If God provided a scrap of bread - to God was given the glory, if God provided a piece of cake - then again even as before - to God was given the glory.

To be poor was to live in total and complete insecurity of life. As God fed the birds of the air and clothed the lilies of the field - so she trusted God to care for her needs and that of her sisters. To be poor meant they did not own lands and fields that brought in a steady income. Each day was left for God to provide. And what did she find? God did provide, each and every day.

Only two miracles are recorded in her canonization of multiplication. Once of bread and once of oil. But I am sure in Clare's eyes these multiplications were performed every single day. When they woke in the morning with no bread and the sequestering brother brought them a loaf - or a villager brought them some fruit, or a relative came with a gift surely that was a miracle of multiplication as well! From day to day God provided and so each day there was new cause to praise God for his fatherly and loving care of them.