Holiness of Life by St. Bonaventure

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CHAPTER III: PERFECT POVERTY

Poverty is another of the virtues necessary if we would be holy unto perfection. Our Lord bears witness to this in the Gospel of St. Matthew: “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast and give to the poor” (Matt, xix, 21.) Since the fullness of Gospel perfection is found in poverty, no one should imagine that he has scaled the summits of perfection if he has not become an adept in the practice of evangelical poverty. Hugh of St. Victor tells us that “no matter how many practices of perfection are found among religious, unless there is a love for poverty their life cannot be considered fully perfect” (Cf. Expos. Reg. S. Aug., i Sq.)

Two motives may be suggested that are capable of impelling not merely a religious, but even an ordinary man to a love of poverty. The first is the irreproachable example of Our Divine Lord. The second is the priceless divine promise.

Let us take the first motive. The love and the example of Our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, ought to excite in you, His handmaid, a love of poverty. Christ was born poor, lived poor, and died poor. Realise and bear in mind that Christ gave you this wonderful example of poverty in order to induce you to become a friend of poverty. Our Lord Jesus Christ was so poor at birth that He had neither shelter, nor clothing, nor food. In lieu of a house He had to be content with a stable. A few wretched rags did duty for His clothes. For food He had milk from the Virgin’s breast.

It was meditation on this poverty of Christ that roused the heart of St. Paul and caused him to exclaim, “You know the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that being rich He became poor for our sakes, that through His poverty we might be rich” (Cf. II Cor. viii, 9.) St. Bernard speaking of this same poverty says, “An eternal and copious abundance of riches existed in Heaven. Poverty, however, was not to be found there, though it abounded and was superabundant on earth. Alas! man did not know its worth. The Son of God, though, loved poverty, and desired it, and came down from Heaven and took it as his own possession in order to make it precious in our eyes” (S. Bern. Serm. for Christmas Eve I, 5.)

All His life long, Jesus Christ Our Lord was an example of poverty. Let me tell you, O holy virgin, and all you who profess poverty, let me tell you how poor the Son of God and King of Angels was while He lived in this world. He was so poor that oftentimes He did not know which way to turn for lodging. Frequently, He and His Apostles were compelled to wander out of the city and sleep where they could. It is with reference to such a happening that St. Mark the Evangelist writes, “Having viewed all things round about, when now the eventide was come, He went out to Bethany with the twelve” (Mark xi, 11.)

These words St. Bede explains as follows: “After looking all around and making enquiries as to whether any one was prepared to give Him hospitality—for He was so poor that no one looked upon Him with pleasure—He could not find a dwelling open to Him in the town” (Cf. S. Bede, Vol. V. p. 125.) In a similar strain St. Matthew writes: “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of Man hath nowhere to lay His head” (Matt, viii, 20; Cf. Expos. S. Bonav.)

Added to the poverty of His birth and life was the poverty of the death of the King of Angels. “All you” who have taken the vow of poverty, “stop and consider for a moment” (Lamentations, i, 12) how poor the Lord of all was made for your sakes. Look at His poverty as He dies. His executioners stripped and robbed Him of everything He possessed. He was robbed of His clothes, I repeat it, when the executioners “divided His garments between them, and for His vesture cast lots.” (Cf. Matt, xxvii, 35; Cf. Ps. xxi, 19.) He was robbed of body and soul when, as He succumbed to His most bitter sufferings, His soul was separated from His body in the pangs of death. His persecutors deprived and robbed Him of His divine glory when they refused “to glorify Him as God,” (Cf. Rom. i, 21) and instead treated Him as a common criminal.

“They have stripped me of my glory,” (Cf. Job xix, 9) complains holy Job in a moment of prophecy. Drawing a lesson from the compelling example of Christ’s poverty, St. Bernard writes: “Think of the poor man Christ! There is no house for Him at His birth, so they lay Him in a manger, between an ox and an ass. Look at Him wrapped in wretched swaddling clothes! Think of Him a fugitive on the rough road to Egypt! Think of Him riding on an ass! Think of His poverty as He hangs on the cross” (S. Bern. Serm. Easter III, I.)

After realizing that the God of Gods, the Lord of the World, the King of Heaven, the only begotten Son of God has borne the burden of such dire poverty, where is the Christian, where is the obstinate and benighted religious who still loves riches and despises poverty? “It is a great, a heinous crime that a vile and contemptible worm, for whom the God of Majesty and Lord of All became poor, should desire to be rich.” So says St. Bernard, and he adds: “Let the godless pagan covet riches. Let the Jew who has received the promise of the land look for the fulfilment of the promise and for the possession of the land” (S. Bern. Serm. All Saints I. 7.)

But the maiden consecrated to God, the maiden who lives among Christ’s poor and whose profession is poverty, how can she look for the riches of earth? How, pray, can a daughter of the poor man of Assisi, a maiden who has promised to imitate the poverty of her holy Mother St. Clare, search for earthly riches?

Beyond all measure of belief, dear Mother, are we in our avarice put to shame. Although professing poverty, we have bartered away poverty for avarice. Although the Son of God “became poor for our sakes,” (1 Cor. viii, 9) we are solicitous for what is not allowed us. We try to obtain what the Rule strictly forbids.

In commending perfect Gospel poverty to you, let me insist on the following well-known fact: The more you are attached to the poverty you profess, and the more you practise evangelical poverty, the more will you abound in spiritual and temporal treasures. If you go the contrary way, if you set no value on the poverty you have made your own by profession, then of a certainty will you experience most constant spiritual and temporal need.

That one-time poor woman, Mary the Mother of the poverty-stricken Jesus, sang: “He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away” (Luke i, 53.) The most holy Psalmist expressed the same thought: “The rich have wanted, and have suffered hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good” (Ps. xxx, ii.) Did you never read, did you never hear what Christ the Lord said of poverty to His Apostles? It occurs in the Gospel of St. Matthew. “Be not solicitous, therefore, saying, what shall we eat, or, what shall we drink. Your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things” (Matt, vi, 31–32.) Here is something else He said. It is from St. Luke. “When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, did you lack anything? But they said: Nothing” (Luke xxii, 35–36.)

Living among hard-hearted unbelieving persons, Christ did not find it difficult to attend to His disciples’ wants. Is it any wonder then that He is able to supply the wants of the Friars Minor, and the Poor Ladies, who, living among a faithful and Christian people, profess and imitate a poverty akin to that of the Apostles? “Cast, therefore, all your care upon Him, for He careth for you” (1 Pet. v, 7.)

Since the fatherly care and solicitude of God for us is so intense, should not our anxious longing for temporal things cause us to marvel? Should it not astound us that we are eaten up with desire for vain and empty things? Why, when God occupies Himself with our welfare, do we trouble ourselves so about things of wealth and things of little concern? I can find no other explanation than that we have become avaricious. Avarice—avarice, the mother of confusion and damnation—has taken hold of us.

We may give no other reason than that we have turned away our affections from God, our Salvation (Cf. Deut. xxxii, 15.) The fire of Divine Love has become extinguished in us. We have cooled. Love for God has frozen within us. If we were really fervent and had really stripped ourselves of earthly things, we should follow the poverty-stricken Christ (S. Jer. Ep. cxxv, 20.) When men become excessively hot, they are accustomed to strip themselves of their clothes. The proof of our lack of love and of our great coolness is the attraction which worldly goods possess for us.

O my God, how can we be so harsh with Christ? “He went forth from His own country,” from Heaven, “from His own kinsfolk,” the Angels, “from the house of His Father,” (Cf. Gen. xii, i) from His Father’s bosom, and for us became poor, abject and despised! Yet we are unwilling to give up a wretched and noisome world for Him. We leave the world in body, it is true, but in heart and mind and inclination we give ourselves up to and are wholly absorbed by the world.

O blessed servant of God, recall the poverty of Our Lord Jesus Christ, poor for our sake! Impress on your heart the poverty of your Father, the poor little man Francis. Meditate on the poverty of your holy Mother St. Clare. Cleave to poverty and practise it zealously and courageously. Embrace the Lady Poverty and pray God that for Our Lord’s sake you may never wish to love anything else under heaven save poverty. Keep your heart free from love of honours, temporal things, and riches. Strive diligently to live up to the holy poverty you have vowed.

It is a waste of energy to possess and to love riches. To have one’s heart set on riches and yet to be poor is a dangerous business. To be rich and yet not to love one’s riches is too wearisome. The advantage, the security, the delight of life and the act of perfect virtue is neither to possess riches nor to have any fondness for riches. Therefore, Our Lord’s example and counsel ought to prompt and inspire every Christian to love poverty.

O blessed poverty, which makes those who love it beloved of God and secure even in this world! “For him who has nothing in the world on which his heart is set, there exists nothing of the world to fear” (S. Greg. Moral. Book X, xxi, 39.) So says St. Gregory. In the lives of the Fathers we read that there was a certain poor monk who owned a mat. At night he put half of it under him and the other half he used as a coverlet. Once when it was very cold, the superior of the monastery heard the poor monk praying: “I give thanks, O my God,” he prayed, “because there are very many rich men in prison, many in irons, many in the stocks. But I, like an emperor and lord, may stretch my legs and go whither I wish” (Life of John the Almsg., xx.)

There now; I have done with the first point, the example of poverty. The second motive to inspire a love of poverty is the promise, the priceless promise of Christ. O good Jesus, “rich unto all,” (Rom. x, 19) who can worthily realize, tell, or write of that marvellous heavenly glory which Thou hast promised to give to Thy poor? The practice of voluntary poverty earns the reward of the beatific vision (Cf. S. Greg. Hom., II Book, xxxvii, I), and the right to enter into the palace of the Power of God (Cf. Ps. lxx, 16.) Votaries of voluntary poverty merit a place in the eternal dwellings. They have a right to enter God’s brilliantly illuminated mansions, and they become citizens of the city built and fashioned by God.

Thou, O my God, with Thy own Blessed Mouth hast promised them this eternal reward! “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt, v, 6.) The Kingdom of Heaven, O my Lord Jesus Christ, is nothing else than Thou, Thyself, Who art “the King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (I Tim. vi, 15.) As reward, as the price of their labour, as a complete and perfect joy, Thou wilt give to Thy voluntary poor even the possession of Thyself.

They will rejoice in possessing Thee. They will find delight in Thee. They will, at last, find complete satisfaction in Thee. For “the poor shall eat and shall be filled; and they shall praise the Lord that seek Him; their hearts shall live for ever and ever” (Ps. xxi, 27.) Amen.