Poverty

 

This is the residence chapel where I celebrated Mass today.
 It is very odd to do so without a congregation.
  It is very odd not to preach on Sunday morning.

Jesus said to 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.” Matthew 19:21

A little more than five years ago, I completed the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.  These are completed, most typically, over the course of a thirty day silent retreat, though they can also be completed in other ways.  For most of those who approach the exercises with sincerity and dedication, the experience once is one wherein the retreatant discovers God's love with new depth and conviction.  These were certainly the outcomes for me.  Among the unexpected graces of the retreat, however, was a deepened awareness of God's desire that I should live in poverty.  This call has manifested itself in acute ways over the last several months.

Poverty is, at its heart, not so much a physical as a spiritual reality.  Though not unrelated, material possessions or the lack thereof do not define poverty.  Poverty, rather, is an expression of dependence.  he who is poor has nothing upon which to rely except the goodness and benignity of a provident and loving Eternal Father.  One experiences poverty when he arrives at a point where he cannot take care of himself and must allow another to do so for him.  For this reason, material poverty can be an aid in achieving the genuine poverty to which the Christian disciple is called, but the two are not synonymous.  I might have nothing, but continue to try to take care of myself.  By contrast, I might have all the riches of the earth and  live a life of utter dependence.  Dependence is the key.  To a certain extent, dependence is a synonym to poverty.

This notion makes sense when we consider the fundamental identity with which we approach God.  We are God's beloved children.  While we may like to think we are his beloved, adult children, we deceive ourselves.  We are God's infant children.  The hallmark of infancy is dependence.  Babies cannot take care of themselves. Left unattended, they will certainly die.  We are the same.  We have nothing to recommend that we are capable of self-reliance.  We need someone to take care of us.  To the extent to which we lean into and embrace this reality is the extent to which we experience poverty.  

Jesus is rather insistent on our poverty.  Or at least, he is rather insistent on my poverty.  He is disinclined to tolerate for long any source of security beyond himself.  This is not to say that he wants we to live a life scurrying from one danger to the next like a mouse in a house full of cats.  It is, rather, that he wants me to trust absolutely that in all circumstances he will give me everything I need and more.  Herein, I think, resides an explanation of the fact that I find myself writing while sitting at a desk in q city that I do not love. having celebrated Sunday Mass without people I do love, wondering where to tow a vehicle that has inexplicably stopped working, and wishing that I did not have to rely on providence to get by.  

I have been, for a long time now, growing rich.  My house was comfortable.  I was surrounded by my own things.  I made most decisions for myself.  I largely determined my own schedule.  I recreated in ways that I chose, in places where I was comfortable, and with people with whom I was familiar and had relationships.  I could escape to the ranch at will.  I could hide in one of my two rectories and avoid seeing people for days at a time.  My ministry, though fulfilling, presented few new challenges.  I knew how to handle most situations.  I was generally happy, comfortable, and content.  Though Jesus was near, and I spoke with him regularly, I had arrived in a place in life where it seemed as though I could do it alone.  There was little I needed from Jesus.  There was little I asked him to do for me.  So he put me in a place where I need him.  I was rich, so he made me poor.

I say all of this, not by way of complaint or lament.  It is, mostly, I suppose, just thinking aloud.  Jesus wants me.  He has always wanted me.  But he wants me on his terms, not my own.  I do not get to decide what our relationship is going to look like.  I do not get to decide when I need his help and when I do not.  Either I am dependent on him, and I live that way now and in eternity, or I depend on myself, and I live that way, now and in eternity.  

It is not easy or comfortable to be poor.  In fact, to some extent, the only natural reaction to poverty of the material or spiritual sort, is to attempt to escape it.  That is, I think, perhaps the point.  The only way out is for Jesus to get me out.  And, once I have escaped the poverty of school, traffic, crime, and east-coast nincompoopery, if I am willing, he will choose a new way for me to be poor - a new parish, a new ministry, a new bishop - any of these will be sufficient to ensure that I cannot do it alone.  It will guarantee that I remain God's infant child, always dependent on the one who has always taken care of me, and who always will.