9 — EVANGELICAL POVERTY

Presence of God. — O Jesus, who for love of me willed to embrace a most poor life, grant that I may understand the great value of poverty.

Meditation

1 — One day a scribe approached Jesus and said to Him: “Master, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus answered him: “Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Mt. 8, 19-20). To whoever wants to follow Him, Jesus immediately sets before him the picture of His extremely poor life, deprived of the smallest comfort, because whoever does not feel able to share, at least in some measure, His earthly poverty will not be able to have part in His eternal riches. No one, in fact, can serve at the same time two masters, God and wealth: “You cannot serve God and Mammon” (Mt. 6, 24). If you are attached to riches, comforts, material well-being, in vain will you try to give God your whole heart; it will remain slave to earthly goods. For this very reason the rich young man, after asking Jesus what he had to do to gain eternal life, when he heard: “Go, sell what you have and give it to the poor,” went away saddened “because he had great riches.” He was a good young man: from his youth he had kept the commandments and sincerely desired eternal Life, so much so that “Jesus, looking at him with tenderness, loved him” (Mk. 10, 21-22), and yet attachment to his goods prevented him from following Jesus. It is the story of many souls who, after taking so many steps in God’s service, stop and turn back, because they do not have the courage to detach themselves from earthly goods. And Jesus, commenting on the fact, said to the Apostles: “How difficult it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (ibid., 24 and 25). Reflect that with these words Jesus does not mean only one who is “rich” because he possesses much, but above all one who is “rich” because he is “attached” to what he possesses.

2 — Riches are not in themselves an obstacle to eternal salvation and holiness, but they become one when man makes himself their slave. And to be slave of earthly goods one need not possess much; it is enough to possess “with attachment” something, even of little or no value. The Apostles were poor and possessed very little, yet Jesus, when He invited them to follow Him, asked them to leave even that little. What really frees the soul from slavery to earthly goods is not so much material poverty as “poverty of spirit,” that is, poverty of affections and attachments, even the smallest. St. John of the Cross teaches that this poverty is “night for the soul,” that is, it serves to make the soul enter the night of the senses; in fact, deprivation of things does not strip one at all if the appetite for them remains, but what is necessary is nakedness of appetite and taste for things, which leaves the soul free. And the Saint says: “The soul needs not only to have little temporal goods, but what is even more important” - and this is spiritual poverty - “to be stripped and empty of all that exists in this world” (ibid., 13, 6); it is this spiritual poverty that, freeing the soul from every affection and attachment to earthly goods, completes and gives value to material poverty. In fact, if after renouncing superfluous things, comforts, and conveniences of life, you remain attached to them in your heart, your material renunciation will help you very little. “It is not things of this world that damage the soul, because they do not enter it, but the desire for them, which dwells in it” (ibid., 3, 4).

Colloquy

O most benign Lord Jesus Christ, richest in love, nothing is more dangerous in this world than to be inflamed with desires, since the love of riches is an insatiable hunger, which torments the soul far more by the ardor of desire than it gives refreshment when one attains what one has desired.

“The acquisition of riches is cause of great labors; possession of them brings great fears; their loss causes grave sorrow. He who loves them cannot love You, O Lord, but with them, being perishable, falls into perdition; and he who leans on them with love, with them fails in sadness. He who finds them loses peace; while awake he thinks of how to increase them; if he sleeps, he dreams of thieves; by day he is anxious and afflicted; by night he fears, and thus he is always miserable” (Venerable R. Jordan).

O Lord, how unhappy I would be if love of earthly goods kept me from following You more closely! O how unlike Yours is my life: what diversity of tastes, of desires! You, King of heaven and earth, who could surround Yourself with splendor, because every wealth was created by You, who could have hosts of servants at Your command, wanted nothing and chose for Your first dwelling a stable of animals and, for the last, a hard cross. And I, who am dust and ashes, who have no right to possess because I have nothing of myself, but everything comes to me from Your liberality, shall I have so many claims for a comfortable life, so many desires for material well-being?

O Lord, do not permit that love for temporal goods place itself as obstacle, as a wall of division between You and me. Union of love requires likeness; love either finds or makes similar. I love You, O Lord, but my love is still weak: strengthen it Yourself, so that it may be capable of breaking every attachment that hinders me from following You more closely, from becoming like You.