When God asks that we give up something good, He later repays it in abundance. Therefore, those who know how to be “poor in spirit” in this life will receive “treasure in Heaven”.
Our fragile human nature contains two opposing laws within it: that of the flesh and that of the spirit. When we want to do good, it is wickedness that presents itself to us; when we strive for virtue, the desire of our members invites us to sin (cf. Rom 7:21-23).
Since we are subject to this arduous contradiction, the struggle against the evil within us has become the only path to salvation. And to succeed in this struggle, God has given us powerful weapons, including prayer, vigilance, charity, and joy, among others.
Now, just as a soldier does not carry all his battle gear during the triumphal victory procession, some of these weapons of spiritual combat will not accompany us to eternal happiness because they will no longer be of use. This is the case with the virtue of poverty.
A necessity born of sin
Before the first sin, Adam and Eve did not suffer from any disorder of the passions. The latter were always subject to reason, which in turn was subordinate to faith, through the gift of integrity. Thus, they were able to practise virtue without any effort or struggle, and no inclination to evil ever arose from within them. Entirely free, both could enjoy all the wonders of Paradise, which were like God’s “photo album”; through them they could live in the company of their Maker in a spirit of contemplation.
However, in order to test them and crown them with merit, God allowed the Serpent to intrude into Paradise and tempt our first parents to commit the original sin. Seduced by the false satisfaction that eating the one forbidden fruit in that garden of delights would bring them, they sinned and condemned, along with themselves, all of their descendants to a perpetual interior warfare against their own evil tendencies.
In this new reality, creatures, which had previously represented for them a link with the Creator, came to threaten them with downfall. Their unbalanced passions led them to desire selfishly – and therefore, without a supernatural purpose – the mere enjoyment of all things, which became weights binding them to the world and thus dragging them towards perdition.
Consequently, the need arose for human beings to control their use of material goods and often even to abstain from them, so as to master their hearts.
The Catholic virtue par excellence
Within this context of interior struggle, the practice of poverty trains the soul to turn towards God while man is on pilgrimage in this vale of tears. For this reason, it is not only proper to religious, as some people think, but to all those who wish to be saved.
However, it should be borne in mind that this virtue consists above all in a state of spirit. The mere lack of material goods is not sufficient, nor even indispensable, to practise it, as Benedict XVI states: “The poverty we are talking about here is simply a material phenomenon. Simple material poverty does not redeem […]. The heart of those who possess nothing may be hardened, poisoned, evil, – inwardly full of avarice for the possession of things, forgetting God and coveting external possessions.”1 The poor in spirit of whom the Gospel speaks (cf. Mt 5:3) are not so much the destitute as those who are truly detached from earthly goods and who use the world as if they had no use for it, certain that its form is passing away (cf. Cor 7:29-31).
In short, poverty of spirit “is in a certain sense the Catholic virtue par excellence, because in order to do the will of Our Lord entirely,” which is our highest end, “we must be detached from all that we possess. Otherwise, when we are asked, for the sake of God’s service, to renounce something that we hold dear, it will be far more difficult for us to conform to the higher divine plan.”2
Loving God in creatures
Yet living the virtue of poverty in this way demands a very important predisposition of soul.
It must be understood that the core of the Christian life consists in loving God. And this must be practised not only above all things but by means of all things. Just as in Paradise before sin, we must use creatures as a means of raising ourselves to God and serving Him.
If this form of detachment governs our appetites, then we will know how to renounce the goods that are an obstacle on the path to holiness, and to use with detachment those which are useful and necessary to us.
This spiritual struggle for detachment is, of course, extremely arduous. However, it will not last forever. Those who do not give up along the way will rejoice in eternity to see restored in their souls that purity of intention proper to the original integrity of human nature elevated by grace. Once saved, they will receive from God priceless and infinite treasures, for unlike the devil, who promises to give what he in fact intends to rob from us, God, when He asks us to give up something that is good, will later restore it to us abundantly: “And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life” (Mt 19:29).
As St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus said, poverty is holy, but will not enter Heaven!3 Rather, it will be the punishment of those who choose to set their hearts on riches in this life.
Let us be living examples of detachment!
Few virtues have been so distorted by human malice over the centuries as poverty. Regrettably, it is often confused with miserablism – projected even into churches and the service of the altar – with dirtiness, or even with an atheistic philanthropism, which boasts of feeding stomachs, but forgets to save souls…
However, such misrepresentations are nothing but egoism disguised as virtue, which denies to the service of God and neighbour what it wishes to keep for itself. The genuine spirit of poverty, on the other hand, knows how to use all things to love and glorify God.
It is our mission as Catholics to be living examples of the authentic detachment taught in the Gospel. Always working to increase the glory of the Church and to win souls, let us reject everything that weakens us in the love of God, and in this way we will hasten the establishment of the happy reign of Jesus and Mary over the entire universe! ◊
Notes
1 BENEDICT XVI. Jesus de Nazaré. Do Batismo no Jordão à Transfiguração. São Paulo: Planeta, 2007, p.81.
2 CORRÊA DE OLIVEIRA, Plinio. O partido de Jesus e o do mundo [The Party of Jesus and that of the World]. In: Dr. Plinio. São Paulo. Year XI. No.118 (Jan., 2008); p.12.
3 Cf ST. THÉRÈSE OF THE CHILD JESUS. Não morro… entro na vida. Últimos colóquios [I don’t die… I enter life. The final conversations]. 3.ed. São Paulo: Paulinas, 1981, p.68.
