Of Some Means to Arrive at Poverty in Spirit and Preserve Ourselves Therein

if will aid us much to the attainment of poverty in spirit, and keeping it, if in the first place we attend to what our Father says in his Constitutions: “Let none have the use of anything for his own.”’ He explains this by a comparison. He says that a religious in all that he has the use of should reckon that he is clothed and dressed out like a statue, that makes no resistance when they take its dress off. In this way you should regard the dress that you wear, your book and breviary and everything else that you use, so that, if they told you to give it up or to exchange with another, you should feel it no more than a statue feels it when they strip it of its clothing. If this be the way you hold it, you do not hold it as your own. But if, when they bid you go out of such a room or give up such an article or exchange it for another, you feel great repugnance and difficulty and are not like the statue, it is a sign that you take the thing for your own, since you feel so aggrieved at the loss of it. Therefore our Father wishes superiors sometimes to prove and test their subjects in the virtue of poverty and in the virtue of obedience, as God tested Abraham, that they may see what virtue each one has and give him occasion to grow more and more in it. It is an excellent way of testing us and a means very appropriate to the end we are speaking of, to deprive us of what we have and make us accept something else instead. Speaking of affection for these things of earth, St. Augustine says: ‘‘When we have a thing, we often think we do not care for it; but when they offer to take it away from us, then we come to know what we are.” If, when you part with a thing or they offer to take it away from you, you feel repugnance and difficulty, and perhaps hesitate about giving it up, it is a sign that you are attached to it, since grief and feeling hurt arise from attachment. St. Augustine says: ‘When it gives us no pain or trouble to part with a thing, it is a sign that we are not attached to it and have no affection for it; but when it is a pain and grief to leave it, it is a sign of the presence of such affection.” It is, therefore, an excellent practice of superiors from time to time to exercise us in these things, making us change rooms and move from a room in which perhaps we were very comfortable and very fond of it; cr making us part with a book or exchange an article of clothing, that we may not get any prescriptive right to anything; otherwise, a certain sense of proprietorship may come in little by little and undermine this firm wall of poverty. So we read that this practice was very much in use amongst those ancient Fathers, to the end that their religious might not get an affection for things or regard them as their own.

We read that this is how St. Dorotheus acted with his disciple St. Dositheus. He would give him a garment or vest and make him sew and trim it very neatly, and then, when he had fitted it nicely to his own size, he would take it from him and give it to another. This book of St. Dorotheus is very much in accordance with our manner of proceeding and descends to many minute particulars. It is related there that St. Dositheus was infirmarian, and one time set his heart on a knife, and asked for one from St. Dorotheus, not for himself, but for use in the infirmary. St. Dorotheus said to him: “Do you like the knife, Dositheus? Which would you prefer, to be a slave to this knife or a servant of Christ? Are you not ashamed that this bit of steel shall lord it over you?’ Oh, how many times might we say that to ourselves! Are you not ashamed that a trifle like this should be your master and drag and twirl you about? So he said to him: “Never touch it again.” And he never did touch it again. Let us not take these things for pieces of childishness or things of little importance. St. Jerome says admirably well in a similar case: “To those who do not understand the meaning of virtue, and have not attained to the perfection and purity thereof, perhaps these things will appear a nursery game and of small importance. But they are not; they are points of great perfection and holy wisdom, hidden from the wise and prudent of the world, and revealed and manifested to the humble and simple of heart.”

The second thing that will help to preserve us in poverty of spirit is not to have anything superfluous. This is a special point in which the Lord has shown peculiar favor to us in the Society; for our rooms are like that which Holy Scripture says the Sunamite woman prepared for the holy Prophet Eliseus. The prophet often passed by her house, and she said to her husband: Let us make him a little chamber, and put in it a bed and a table and a chair and a candlestick, that when he comes to us he may lodge there (IV Kings iv. 9-10). That should be the furniture of our rooms; a bed, a table, a chair, and a candlestick; only what is necessary. It is not our custom nor are we anywise allowed to have cells furnished with pictures, portraits, and the like, nor to keep in them spare chairs, nor an elaborate writing desk, nor a carpet, nor a curtain in front of the door; nor can we keep in our cell a little jam or any other delicacy wherewith to regale ourselves, or to comfort and entertain those who visit us. Even to get a drink of water we have to ask leave and go to the refectory; nor may we have a book in which we are allowed to make a mark, or carry the book away with us. Undeniably this is great poverty; but it goes along with great relief and great perfection, for these things beyond a doubt take up much of a religious’ time and get in his way, since the having of them and keeping of them and adding to them clearly must cost care and distraction. The not being allowed to have such things (as they are not allowed amongst us) puts an end to all those inconveniences.

One of the reasons why in the Society outsiders are not allowed to come into our rooms, besides other undesirable consequences that such entry would lead to, is because our poverty can thus be better preserved. For, after all, we are men, and if the knight, the merchant, the literary man, whose confessions we hear, were to come into our room, I do not know whether we should have virtue enough to be satisfied with the poverty that reigns there, but we should like to keep it better furnished with books, that from my books at least he might take me for a Jearned man and a very consequential person. Thus this rule is a great help to keep us in our poverty and hinder us from having superfluities, and we should highly esteem it accordingly, and see that it is kept up.

Another good means to preserve ourselves in this holy poverty, and a very praiseworthy practice, is that of some religious, to carry off to their superior all their little things that they call their pets, and dispossess themselves of them, though they be things that they might keep lawfully and in conformity with obedience. It is told in the chronicles of the Order of St. Jerome that at their beginning this usage was quite common, and so much care was taken that no religious should have anything superfluous or curious that, when there was found in the possession of anyone any article that was curious and not religious, they all met in chapter and made a great fire in the middle, and there they burned it, for these holy men said that such things were the idols of religious. Now this is what we ought to imitate; all things that are not necessary we should banish from our cells and rid ourselves of them entirely, taking them and offering them to the superior without any hope of their ever coming back. And to do that it is not necessary that we should have any affection for them; it is enough that they are superfluous.

St. Bonaventure adds another remark, that he did not approve of our keeping such little things, as some do, to give to others as prizes, or to win them over, or under color of devotion; because, after all, these things take up the heart and are a cause of distraction. Besides, it is making ourselves singular and marked off from the rest, because it seems that this is the man in the house who keeps a shop for these things and to whom all ought to have recourse. There is also, says the saint, another disadvantage in the practice, which is that often these things are given away without leave, sometimes without looking into the matter, sometimes out of shame of having recourse to the superior about these childish gewgaws. So it comes at times that others also receive them without leave, for not daring to say no and put the giver to the blush; and this is a cause of disedification on one side, and scruple and remorse on the other. There is this further undesirable result, that these gifts and little presents are wont to foment particular friendships and familiarities, to the prejudice of union and fraternal charity. For these reasons, says St. Bonaventure, such doings do not meet with the approval of our elders. And so it is also in our order, because, though this is permitted in some by reason of their ministries, in others, however, we well know that it does not please superiors nor edify our brethren. A religious ought to be so poor as to have nothing to give. And this is what edifies; while those who are fond of having little things to give away neither edify nor are well thought of; and that is the reason why in this matter we follow the counsel of St. Bonaventure.

It will also help much to our purpose to bring forward one thing in which the virtue of holy poverty shines out greatly, and by the blessing of the Lord is well practised in the house; it is that we do not keep our rooms locked, and no one without special leave of the superior can have a writing desk, or box, or anything else locked; all is open to the superior’s eyes. Thus, in the very way in which we hold what we do hold and use, we seem to say: “There, take it if you will.” St. Jerome insists on this point. “Let there be no need of keys, that from the very exterior look of things it may be shown that we have no outward possessions but only Jesus”—Nihil habetur extrinsecum praeter Tesum.

And while everything is so open and exposed, by the goodness of the Lord, it is quite safe as regards those of the house. That we might observe this regulation with facility and security, our Father has laid down in the first place a rule, that none shall enter another’s room without leave of the superior. That is one lock, or key, whereby our room is like to be better secured than by a key of iron. He laid down also another rule, that no one should take anything out of another’s room without leave of the superior. That is another strong lock and key. And above all this the seal is set by the vow of poverty, again a very strong fastening. With these three locks and keys so strong, our room and all its contents, for all its being left open, is better secured, so far as the inmates of the house are concerned, than if it were closed with gates and bars of iron. And we should all make an effort that it may remain so, and continue in future times. He would be worthy of heavy punishment who by his audacious violation of the rule should anywise impair the plainness, simplicity, and perfection which mark the Society’s manner of life, or risk any alteration in a thing so holy and in such a brilliant display of the virtue of holy poverty. Against such offenders St. Basil and St. Bonaventure inveigh strongly in good round terms.