Evangelical Poverty
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25 September 1985
Arequipa, Peru

My dear Sisters,

When we read the New Testament, we have to be jolting our minds constantly back to the conditions of life as Our Lord, His Mother and His disciples would have known them. In those days there was only one way of sending a message abroad and that was by word of mouth. Newspapers did not exist; books had to be handwritten, and a book the size of the New Testament would have cost about $40 to produce. TV and radio, upon which we depend so much for ready news, had not even been dreamed of. So to spread the message which He had come to give to humanity, Jesus, Who was under the limitations of time and space, chose Twelve and, as St. Luke remarks in this morning's Gospel, "sent them forth to proclaim the reign of God and heal the afflicted." (Lk 9:2).

The Twelve were to travel light. Perhaps that was because the man who travels light can travel far and fast. The more material things a man possesses, the more he is tied to one place.

However, there was probably another reason, a deeper and more spiritual one. If the messengers of Our Lord were to be seen traveling with all sorts of possessions, it could create in the minds of their hearers the impression that the messengers were making a lot of money from proclaiming the reign of God. Our Lord wished that it be made abundantly clear that these men were but spokesmen for Jesus, the Son of the living God. The message they proclaimed belonged to God and the Twelve were to be seen as men who were glad to be privileged with communicating that message without any self-interest on their part. It is the same today. As priests or sisters we are sent out by Jesus Christ to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God and to heal the suffering. Should we be encumbered with too many possessions, should we show ourselves to be interested more in our own comfort than being selfless agents of Jesus Christ, we will not be credible to the poor. That same power of Jesus Christ through the Twelve will work through us, provided we keep the windscreens of our hearts clean. That is why St. Vincent and St. Louise insisted so much on the importance of evangelical poverty and the practice of the virtue of detachment in our lives. Your Constitutions put the ideal clearly: "Only by a personal and collective practice of this kind of poverty will their witness be authentic. With great trust in Divine Providence, the Sisters live simply and are content to spend only what is necessary for their apostolic works and for their life as servants." (C. 2.7).

In the Gospel passage, to which we have just listened, there is an interesting phrase at the beginning and at the end. St. Luke remarks that Jesus sent the Twelve out "to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal." (Lk 9:2). After they had received their instructions from Our Lord, St. Luke makes the same point again. "And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the Gospel and healing everywhere." (Lk 9:6). So, on the Twelve Jesus laid two tasks, preaching and healing. They were to care for the bodies and for the souls of those whom they would meet. The message was not only one in words, however comforting, it was also one in actions. It was a message which was not confined to news of eternity, but it also proposed to change conditions on earth. It was a message for mankind in his temporal condition, as well as in his eternal condition.

The spiritual genius of St. Vincent could be said to have consisted in his ability to marry the task of preaching the Gospel to the poor with the task of healing their minds and their bodies. One of the most marvelous achievements, and perhaps the most fundamental, of St. Vincent, was to find and make explicit a formula of action which would help his two Communities to achieve the double task of enlightening the minds and hearts of the poor about Jesus Christ and His message, while also manifesting a very practical concern for the welfare of their bodies. The Christian could be said to be like a person who is walking on a tightrope. If he leans too much to one side, he will fall into a false spirituality which takes no account of the practical needs of the poor at our doors. If he leans too much to the other side, he can lose his balance and become so engrossed in political action for the poor as to forget that the poor are not intended to have a lasting city here on this earth, but with all other Christians are on pilgrimage to the city of the new Jerusalem whose maker and builder is God. If we absorb and live the spirituality of our Founders, we will keep our balance on the tightrope and by the grace of God make Jesus Christ and His message known to the poor and at the same time give them the practical assistance which the Good Samaritan gave to the wounded man he found on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

With St. Vincent then, I say to you, my dear Sisters: "Hold fast then to the state in which God has placed you; always try to preserve your primitive spirit of humility and simplicity. As God has chosen you, as He chose St. Francis, to honor Him in your poor and lowly condition in the eyes of the world, hold fast to it and He will bless you....So then, my daughters, you have been chosen by God to be predestined, if you are faithful to the observance of your Rules; it is not you who have chosen yourselves, but God Who has elected you. You are the apostles of charity.... Let us pray to the Blessed Virgin that she may pray to Her Son for us all....O Blessed Virgin, who speak for those who have no tongue and who cannot speak for themselves, we beseech Thee, these good Sisters and myself, to assist this Little Company. Continue and perfect a work which is the greatest on earth." (Conf. Eng. ed., 8 Aug. 1655, pp. 722-723).

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