Of Another Means That Will Greatiy Help Us to Attain Poverty in Spirit and Keep Us in the Same

IT will also be a great help to us to preserve us in poverty in spirit and attain the perfection thereof, not only to rid ourselves of superfluous things, but to take care, even in necessary things, which we are obliged to make use of, to make the virtue of poverty conspicuous, that in all things Wwe may appear poor men, as we are. Our Father commends this to us in his Constitutions. ‘Let the diet, dress, and sleeping accommodation be such as becomes poor men, and let each one persuade himself that the worst things in the house will be given to him for his greater abnegation and spiritual profit.” And in another place he says: “Let all love poverty as a mother and, according to the measure of holy discretion, in proper season let them feel some effects of it.” Our holy Father would have us desire the poorer and the worse, but he would not have us evaporate wholly in desires, but sometimes feel indeed the effects of poverty.

Thus, though the necessaries of life be not wanting to you, you have always room in this matter to give proof of the virtue of holy poverty. And not content with saying this in general once or twice over, he afterwards, in the Sixth Part of the Constitutions, sets himself expressly to declare what our clothes are to be like. That they should be, on the one hand, religious and suitable to our ministries, and at the same time conformable to the poverty we profess, he says that these things are to be observed in them: first, that they be decent, because we are religious; secondly, that they fall in with the usage of the country in which we live, because our manner of life is common as to the exterior; thirdly, that they be not contrary to poverty; and he declares there that they would be contrary to poverty if they were made of very costly cloth. Therefore, though parents, relations, friends, and penitents were anxious to give a religious fine cloth, he must not have his clothes made thereof, because they would not be the clothes of a poor man, nor in accordance with our Constitutions. Some say that it is a saving to have one’s clothes made of good material, because it lasts twice or three times as long, and so makes for poverty. But these are fleshly and worldly reasons. It is much more important that poverty be conspicuous in the clothes we wear, and that we look like poor men, and go about dressed as poor men, for such we are; this, I say, is more important than any amount of saving. Further, not only in the quality of the cloth, but also in the cut of the coat, poverty should be well marked. If one selected a garment very full, ample, and dignified, it would not be the habit of a poor religious. There are two things only that our Father would have us make account of in dress, proper decency and protection against cold, for to these two objects were clothes instituted and that is their end. It is the doctrine of St. Basil, who quotes to this effect the saying of St. Paul: Having food and wherewith to be covered, with that we are content (I Tim. vi. 8). Let us be content with having food to sustain us and clothes to cover us. A holy man observes: See what he says: food, not dainties and delicacies; and see what he says, clothes wherewith to be covered, not to look smart. We should be content with bare necessaries; and for the rest, all that savors of dignity and ostentation should be banished from religious life and nowise tolerated, since it is vanity and profanity. Let all that be cast out; let not the world come upon us here.

Oh, how the glorious St. Francis dreaded that even in his order! It is related in their chronicles that Friar Elias, a leading man in the order, who became minister general, had a habit made for himself, full and ample, with long sleeves, and of costly stuff. St. Francis called him in the presence of many friars and told him to lend him the habit that he wore. The saint put it on over his own, making proper folds of the train and arranging the hood and turning up the sleeves with gestures of vanity, and so began to march about with his head high and his chest thrown out, stepping out with a fine pontifical strut and saluting the friars present in a deep sonorous voice: ‘God save you, gallant gentlemen!” The religious stood staring with astonishment at what the saint did and said. That done, in a transport of fervor and zeal, he hastily pulled off the habit and in utter scorn flung it far from him, and said to Friar Elias in the hearing of them all: “The bastard sons of the order are clad in that fashion.” So he stood up in his habit, humble and unostentatious, straight and short, and resuming his air of cheerfulness and mildness, he began to talk to his friars with great humility and familiarity, teaching them entire meekness, poverty, and humility.

Let us not, then, be bastard sons of our order, but legitimate sons, in all things like to our mother, holy poverty. Our clothes should be in the style of the poor; poverty should be conspicuous in them and show that we are poor men. And to that end they should be even less than what we might decently wear, and even less than what the opinion of the world might think necessary for us. He cannot be called poor in dress whose dress is abundantly complete in all that can be called necessary; he shows no sign of being a poor man to whom no detail of what is necessary is wanting. That is why we said above that perfect poverty meant rejoicing in having to suffer and endure some flaw and shortcoming even in the supply of things necessary, and that he who had no mind to suffer and endure any want had not attained to the perfection of poverty in spirit.

What is said of clothes must be understood of all other things of which we have the use. We must take care that the virtue of holy poverty is apparent in them all, and that it may easily be seen that we are poor men. Thus in our room we should not keep anything but what is necessary, and that of the meanest; the poorest table, the most tumble-down bed; the worst furniture in the house you must covet to have for yourself; and as for books that are not quite necessary, off with them to the library, and do not make a parade of learning by piling up books in your room. St. Bonaventure enters into minute details here, earnestly charging religious to keep only necessary things and with them taking care that they be not works of art, but rough, what will just do, old and mended. Do not look to it that your books be very well bound, or that your breviary or Horae Diurnae be a curiosity of workmanship or a thing of singular elegance. Do not carry about with you curious pictures, nor a rosary of any considerable worth and value; and if you do have any Agnus Dei or any cross or reliquary for your own devotion, let it be conformable to the poverty that we profess; and the poorer you are in this respect, the more pleasing you will be to God and His saints.

The blessed St. Francis used to say that to keep curious and unnecessary things was a sign of a dead spirit. When the spirit is tepid, and the ardor of grace has died down, with what can it cover and entertain itself, he says, but with these trifling things? As it finds no comfort in spiritual things, it seeks it in these outward objects of interest. This is a great truth, well borne out by experience; and that is why our superiors make so much account of these small things, for one reason, because they touch poverty, and for another, because there is no life of the spirit where one busies himself with the like things. And even in necessary things, as we have said, we ought to be poor and appear so, and be glad to suffer some diminution in them, the better to imitate Christ our Lord, Who, being rich and powerful, made Himself poor for love of us (II Cor. viii. 9) and chose to suffer such lack of necessary things, suffering hunger, thirst, cold, weariness, and nakedness. St. Bernard says: “In heaven there was great abundance of good things and riches, but no poverty was to be found there. Here on earth there was great abundance of that commodity, but men did not know its worth and value. What, then, did the Son of God do? As a wise merchant His heart went out to that commodity and He took in a store of it, that so men might know and value it and also take in a store of it, seeing that it is worth so much in the kingdom of heaven.”