For twenty-eight years [Saint] Clare [of Assisi] was continually ill, and often confined to her bed. Even in bed she insisted on doing her share of work. One legend tells of how she dropped a roll of linen cloth she was sewing and it rolled too far from her bed for her to reach. The monastery cat, with which she is pictured in this icon, retrieved the cloth for her so that she could finish the work. This story reflects the profound closeness to creation and all other creatures that lies at the core of Franciscan spirituality.
— Robert Lentz, Christ in the Margins by Edwina Gateley, Robert Lentz