Detachment, or Evangelical Poverty

10. 1. As has been said, having neither patrimony nor income from a benefice — which is contrary to apostolic detachment — they have no resource but Divine Providence, which sustains them through whom and in whatever manner it pleases.
11. 2. Within the Company, they have no money or furnishings of their own, neither in secret nor in public, the community providing them with everything necessary for their clothing and food, according as Divine Providence itself provides it to the community.
12. 3. The Company has and may have as its own only two houses in the kingdom: the first in Paris, to form ecclesiastics in the apostolic spirit; the second outside Paris, in a province of the kingdom, where they go to rest when they are out of combat and to end their days in retreat and solitude, after having spent their best years in the conquest of souls. The Company may receive from the hands of Divine Providence other houses that are given to it in the various dioceses where God calls it; but it will accept only the use of them, like a tenant in a house, or merely lodging, like a stranger at an inn. If no one wishes to give it a house, it will not ask for one; it will be content to rent one, in the countryside rather than in the city. But if some charitable person makes a gift of a house, the Company will leave the ownership in writing in the hands of the Bishop of the place and his successors, retaining only the use of it — the Bishop and his successors thereby having full power and right to take back the said house from the said missionaries if in time they were to become sedentary and fail to fulfill their duties; and they may apply the said house to other charitable uses more beneficial to the public, without however being able to appropriate the revenues for themselves. By this means, the missionaries are not established in any place as are ordinarily the most regular communities; but in exchange they will be more solidly established in God alone, if they always abandon themselves unreservedly to the care of his Providence. By this means, they will not be distracted from their apostolic labors by taxes, dues, lawsuits, and wars that follow almost necessarily from the ownership of lands and houses. By this, too, they are reminded to regard, as pilgrims and strangers, the houses where they are received as merely inns from which they depart when they have done what is necessary, in order to keep running: posui vos eatis.
13. 4. During the time a mission lasts, they may not receive any money as alms from those to whom they are giving the mission; but after the mission is over, they may receive through the hands of the Superior such alms of pure charity or gratitude as are offered to them.
14. 5. It is absolutely forbidden for them, whether during or after the mission, to ask anything of anyone directly or indirectly — neither money, nor bread, nor anything else whatsoever — trusting entirely for all things in the care of Divine Providence, which would sooner work a miracle than fail the needs of those who trust in her. They are not, however, forbidden to speak publicly or privately of their state of dependence on Providence and their rules on this subject.
15. 6. They say all their Masses without charge, as do the religious of the Society of Jesus, for those who request them; they may even accept up to thirty intentions and no more. But if someone wishes to give them some token of gratitude or stipend, they have it received, after the mission or even during the mission, through the hands of the Director or the Bursar. As for the Director of the mission, he should ordinarily say his Masses only for the benefactors of the missionaries and of the poor; and he does not fail to make this known to the public.
16. 7. When they go on mission, the Director or the Bursar carries with him some alms money, if he has any, to help repair the churches and feed the poor of the places they visit. In the event that the people, because of their hardness or poverty, are unwilling to give them what is necessary, they may use it for their own maintenance and food. Far from this industrious economy being contrary to abandonment to Providence, it actually serves Providence as an instrument to help the missionaries and as a spur to the people to contribute to the repair of churches and the support of the poor — besides which it follows the example our Lord gave us, having a common purse pro suis pauperumque usibus, for his needs and those of the poor.
17. 8. If a priest brings any money with him upon entering the Company, he puts it all without reserve into the purse of Providence. If after his entry into the Company his relatives or friends give him some alms or some Mass stipend without his having asked for it, he likewise puts it into the common purse, to be applied to the needs of the whole community, without claiming any particular benefit or any special privilege — exactly like one who brought nothing and from whom nothing was asked.
18. 9. If a missionary, whether before or after his vows, leaves the Company on his own initiative, without permission, or through formal disobedience, he will not claim any portion or any recompense for what he gave as alms to the Company of voluntary poor. But if he is dismissed against his will for some considerable fault that does not amount to formal disobedience, he will be reimbursed at least in part for what he gave, his expenses being deducted.