13. Second Friday of Advent

Meditations no. 13 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The poor are God’s favourites. Love of riches is incompatible with love of God.

There is a passage in St Matthew, our Father remarked on one occasion, that has often made me meditate. I hope you will meditate on it too. It is our Lord’s answer to John’s disciples, who ask whether he is the one who is to come or if they are to wait for another. Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” Our Lord includes this among the great wonders. Poverty. Jesus loves the poor.

To be open to God’s love, we have to be detached from earthly possessions. In the light of faith we understand that earthly things are only a means to an end. It would be madness to covet them as if they were lasting. Jesus tells us: Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

When a man tries to build his happiness exclusively around the things of this world, and in this I have witnessed some real tragedies, he perverts their proper use and destroys the order so wisely established by the Creator. As a consequence the heart is left sad and unsatisfied It starts following paths which lead to everlasting unhappiness and it ends up, even in this world, a slave, the victim of the very things which had perhaps been gained at the cost of countless efforts and renunciations. But, above all, I recommend you never to forget that God cannot find a place, that he cannot dwell in a heart which is bogged down by a coarse, disorderly and empty love. No man can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will devote himself to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

On the other hand, to those schooled in detachment, God promises the riches of paradise: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let us ask him, with today’s liturgy: Teach us to judge wisely the things of earth and to love the things of heaven.

The poverty Christ practised is a prerequisite for following closely in his footsteps.

God asks all Christians for a spirit of poverty, especially those who are called to follow him more closely. So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. It is the condition he set when he invited us to follow him: If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. Our self-giving must be such that we can say with St Peter: We have left everything and followed you.

A sign that we are totally detached will be our readiness to accept all of poverty’s consequences, even at times going without the most necessary things. Then, far from growing sad, we should rejoice all the more because Jesus is giving us an opportunity to imitate him in the privations he suffered in Bethlehem and on the Cross; and to implement, literally, what he told the Apostles: Take no gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts, no bag for your journey .

Throughout these twenty-six years, our Father said in 1955, I have often found myself without anything, completely destitute, with no prospect of obtaining anything at all. We lacked even the most necessary things. But what joy was ours! For we were seeking the kingdom of God and his justice, and we knew that everything else would be given us in addition.

There will always be places where detachment will require that degree of heroism. Ordinarily, however, we will not lack the things we really need. Through our personal efforts we will ensure that we have at our disposal the material resources required for our apostolic work. But even then our spirit of poverty will retain its full force. We love Christ’s poverty, and we relish and eagerly seek what we love. It is good, then, to examine ourselves frequently on this point. Does our love for poverty lead us to practise it at all times? Are we alert to its implications and thus able to avoid sinking into an easy or mediocre way of life? Do we keep our hearts fully detached from earthly things, so as to use those things only as instruments for serving God?

How the spirit of the Work teaches us detachment from temporal things.

My children, our poverty should not be a form of ostentatious destitution. It is always hidden behind a smile, by our personal cleanliness, the cleanliness of our clothes, and above all, the cleanliness of our soul. Hence, we do not expect any praise in this life; but we never forget the words of St Matthew: Pater tuus, qui videt in abscondito, reddet tibi (your Father who sees in secret will reward you).

Our total detachment from earthly things is not something we merely talk about. It must be a reality in each of us, so that our personal life is modelled on Christ’s example, in accordance with the particular vocation we have received.

We see him first as a child, and then as the head of the poor family at Nazareth, and later that other family of the Apostles. Contemplation of our Lord’s example will awaken in us the attitude of parents of a large and poor family. On our shoulders we will feel the weight of the needs of the Work. Jesus teaches us that when we try to acquire this attitude out of love for God, it becomes a road to sanctity.

This outlook will lead us to act at all times with a sense of responsibility. We will be frugal when it comes to our own personal needs, and not spend money unnecessarily. And we will make every effort to contribute to the support of this great family to which we belong.

We wish to practise a thorough, undiluted detachment, and one day we shall have to render an account to God of how we have helped preserve this spirit in its entirely. Therefore we need to take great care to practise it personally, never allowing it to become weakened through carelessness or thoughtlessness. We should be especially careful never to deceive ourselves into allowing the things we use for our work to develop into objects for our own personal use. Otherwise we would be seeking our own comfort, while not shouldering the burdens of our family.

Since we are detached, we seek the explicit permission of the Director for any extraordinary expense. In this way we avoid being led by whims. We also hand in our ordinary expense accounts punctually, never considering ourselves dispensed from doing so. Likewise we take good care of the things for our own personal use, those of the house where we live, and anything else that has been entrusted to our care.

In these and countless other particulars, we should continually manifest our love for this virtue. As Christ’s life demonstrates, poverty is something to practise at all times - including those situations in which our profession or position gives us access to other benefits.

Moderation in their use will be the good fragrance of Christ that must permeate our lives, dedicated as we are to God in the middle of the world.

Our detachment is demanding. That is the way it has to be for anyone wishing to imitate Jesus Christ. We cannot complain, our Father tells us. If we are near Christ, following in his footsteps, we must love poverty with all our heart. Like a father’s love for his family, our love will also turn our selfless dedication into something sweet and lovable.

We think of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem, and ask her to teach us how to love and imitate the life of poverty of Jesus, her Son.