In What Poverty of Spirit Consists

IN these words, Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matt. v. 3), Christ our Redeemer clearly defines in what consists the perfection of that poverty which we religious profess. Poverty of spirit means poverty of will and affection. The outward act of abandonment of property and worldly wealth is not enough; we must abandon such things in heart also. Poverty of spirit means detachment of heart from all things here below, that freely and without impediment we may follow Christ and give ourselves wholly over to seeking perfection, which is the end at which we aim and for which we came to religion. St. Jerome marks this well in the answer of Christ our Redeemer to St. Peter. Peter had said: Lord, we have left all things. And Christ answered: Verily I say to you that ye who have followed me shall sit judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. xix. 28). Observe, says the saint, He does not say simply, ye who have left all things, but ye who have followed me. Leaving all things was what Diogenes also did, Antisthenes, and many other philosophers. Among them St. Jerome tells of a Theban named Crates, that, being very rich, and intending to go to Athens to give himself to philosophy and virtue, to the end that riches might be no obstacle to his course, he sold all his inheritances and possessions and, gathering from the sale a great quantity of gold, he flung the whole mass into the sea, saying: “Go into the depth, ye wicked covetous desires; I will drown you, that I may not be drowned by you.” Of another philosopher named Phocion, a man of great distinction in his poverty, it is related that, when Alexander sent him a great sum in gold, a hundred talents, that make in our money 600,000 crowns [$125,000], he asked those who brought it: ““Why did Alexander send me this?” They answered: “Simply for your virtue and because he takes you for the best and most virtuous man among the Athenians.” The philosopher said: “Then let me remain so,” and he would on noaccountreceive the money. This act and speech was so celebrated among the Greek philosophers that for a long time no other question was discussed among them than who had been the greater, Alexander, or Phocion, who had despised the riches of Alexander. If you take me for a good and virtuous man, let me be so and do not send me riches to hinder me. There are many instances given of this.

On the other hand, St. Augustine and St. Jerome say that it is not the gold either nor the silver that does the harm; and they quote the example of many saints and patriarchs of the Old Testament who were very rich, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and the patriarch Joseph, who was second in the kingdom of Pharaoh and held command over the whole land of Egypt; and Daniel and his three companions, who held high office in Babylon, as did Mardochee and Esther in the whole kingdom of Assuerus; David, Job, and many others who in the midst of the riches and pompsof the world held to the principle of poverty of spirit, since their heart was not wedded and attached to such things, and well observed the advice of the prophet: If riches flow in, set not thy heart upon them (Psalm Ixi. 11).

But, coming to our point, there are two requisites for this poverty of spirit which we religious profess. The first is that we should actually renounce and leave all the things of the world, as we do by the vow of poverty. The second is that we should leave also all affection for such things, that our heart may be disengaged and free to give itself entirely to God and to perfection. St. Thomas says that the first requisite, the actual giving up of things, is in view of the second, that so we may more easily give up affection for them, the one being a very efficacious means to the other. For this he quotes St. Augustine’s saying: “Earthly things, when we hold and possess them, carry away the heart more;” and so it is more difficult to lose affection for them than when we have them not. It is much easier not to crave after what one does not hold than to give up what one holds already. What one does not hold is cast off for a foreign thing; but what one does hold is like a thing united and incorporated in self. As St. Thomas says, leaving it is like cutting a limb off, a very sensible and painful operation. St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory treat this subject very well, commenting upon those words of the Apostle St. Peter. St. Jerome says: St. Peter and the rest of the apostles were poor fishermen, who gained their livelihood by the labor of their hands and had nothing but a miserable pittance, an old boat and some greatly mended nets; and yet with all assurance they say, Lord, we have left all things. St. Gregory answers that they are right in saying so; since in this matter, my brethren, we should look rather to the heart than to the goods that are given up. He leaves much who has got nothing left; he leaves much who leaves all, be it little or much. We are much attached at heart to what we possess and to the desire of what we do not possess. Now the apostles left much because they not only left what they had, but also the desire of having. He leaves much who leaves all that he has, and therewith the desire of having. St. Augustine says the same. The apostles were right in saying that they had left all things, though they had only a few poor boats and some rotten nets, since “he leaves everything in the world and despises it all, who despises not only what he has, but also all that he could desire’”—Revera omnia contemnit, qui non solum quantum potuit, sed etiam quantum voluit habere contemnit.

This is a great comfort for those of us who leave little because we have not more. St. Augustine says, speaking of himself, after he had sold and left what he had: “Not because I was not rich shall less be put down to my credit, for neither were the apostles rich; but he leaves all the world, who leaves not only all that he has, but all that he could desire’—Non enim quia dives non fui, ideo minus mihi imputabitur; nam nec apostoli, qui priores hoc fecerunt, divites fuerunt. Sed totum mundum dimittit, qui et illud quod habet et quod optat habere dimittit. A man gives up as much for God, as for God’s sake he ceases to desire; and so you have left all the world and all things in it if you have quitted the affection and desire, not only of what you had and might have had, but also of all that you could have wished for and desired; and so you may well rejoice and say with the apostles: Lord, we have left all things for thee. And he who had much there in the world should not make more of himself on that account nor think that on that account he has left much; for he leaves little, if he does not leave off the desire of all that he could wish for and desire. Much more has another left, in that he has abandoned the desire of all things in the world.

In this, then, consists the essence of this spiritual poverty, in this renouncement, disregard, and contempt of all things, trampling all things of the world under our feet and, as though they were dung, saying with St. Paul: I reckon all things as dung that I may gain Christ (Phil. iii. 8). We should trample on all things, and despise and hold them for nothing, to gain Christ.

These are the poor in spirit whom He calls blessed, and with much reason, not only because theirs is already the kingdom of heaven, as we have said, but also because they begin from now to enjoy a very great satisfaction, a state of happiness and blessedness on earth. Happiness does not consist in a multitude of possessions; it consists, says Boethius, “in having everything that one wishes for, and wishing for nothing that one ought not to wish.” This the poor in spirit have, more than the rich and powerful of the world. The poor in spirit have all that they desire, because they desire nothing beyond what they have; with that they are content and desire nothing more; rather it seems to them that they have too much of everything. But the rich men of the world are never satisfied or content. The miser will never have enough of money (Eccles. v. 9); avarice never says, “It is enough,” for these things never can avail to satisfy the appetite, but rather stimulate and increase it. As the dropsical man, the more he drinks, the more he thirsts, so the miser, the more he gets, the more he covets what he is short of, taking no account of what he has, but considering what he might have. What he is short of gives him more pain than all his wealth gives him pleasure. Thus he spends his whole life in pain and torment, a-hungering and longing and striving to get more.

It is related of Alexander the Great that, hearing the lecture of a philosopher named Anaxarchus, who discussed and argued the existence of infinite worlds, he began to weep; and when his attendants asked him what he was weeping for, “Don’t you think I have reason to weep,” he said, “seeing that there are so many worlds, as this man says, and we have not been able to make ourselves masters of one?” The desire of what was wanting to him gave him more pain than all his conquests gave him satisfaction. On the other hand, that other philosopher, with one old cloak and a poor mantle, went about as cheerful and gay as though it were always Easter time for him. He was more satisfied and content and rich in his poverty than Alexander with all the world at his beck. And Diogenes the Cynic said a very good thing to the same Alexander, as St. Basil relates. Alexander came to this philosopher in his poverty and said to him: “You seem to me to be in want of many things; ask, and I will give you them.” The philosopher replied: ‘Sire, who do you think is in greater want, I who want no more than my cloak and my wallet, or you who, being King of Macedon, expose yourself to such danger to enlarge your kingdom, and the whole world is hardly enough to satisfy your desires? I am richer than you are.” St. Basil says that was a good answer, and so it was; for tell me, who is the richer, he who has a surplus or he who has a deficit? Clearly, he who has a surplus. Now this philosopher reckoned that he had enough and more than enough, and lacked nothing of what he wished for, seeing that he wished for no more than he had; while much was wanting to Alexander the Great, considering what he desired and wanted to have. Thus the philosopher was richer than Alexander, and more was wanting to Alexander than to the philosopher.

True wealth and happiness and contentment in this life do not consist in great possessions, but in the fulfilment of one’s desires and the satisfaction of one’s will; nor does poverty consist in the want of things, but in hunger and desire for getting them and insatiable thirst for having them. “Away from that,” says Plato, “anyone who is good will also be rich.” St. Chrysostom brings a good comparison to illustrate this. If a man were very thirsty and, after drinking one jug of water and another, could not satisfy the burning thirst that he felt within him, we could not call such a one happy and blessed for the mere fact that he had great abundance of water to drink. More happy and blessed should we hold him to be who was not thirsty and had no craving for drink. The former is like a dropsical man or a man in a high fever, and the latter like one in sound and good health. This, then, is the difference between those who yearn after riches and fortune and the truly poor in spirit who are content with what they have got and desire nothing of this world. The latter are healthy, the former sick; the latter are satisfied, the former hungry and thirsty; the latter are rich, the former poor. This is what the Holy Ghost says by Solomon: What meaneth all this, that he who hath nothing is very rich; and he who hath ample property and wealth is as a needy poor man, ever hungering after and desiring more, and fancying that he is always short of something? (Prov. xiii. 7). Do you know what it means? This is the misery and wretchedness, the “damned spot” that riches and goods of the world always carry with them, that they cannot satisfy nor give contentment; and this is the happiness and blessedness that poverty of spirit carries with it, that it puts its possessors in the blissful state of beginning to enjoy from henceforth an extreme satisfaction.

It is related of Socrates that he used to say: “God has need of nothing; and he is most like God, who has need of the fewest things and is content with the fewest.” Passing through the market place and seeing the multitude of things sold there, he was wont to say, talking to himself: “What a lot of these things I have no need of!” The ignorant common herd and the avaricious and covetous, when they see such a multitude of things, sigh and say: “How many things I am short of!”