Salesian Literature

Chapter 15:  How to practise real poverty while remaining rich

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The painter Parrhasius painted the people of Athens in a very ingenious way representing their different and changing moods: angry, unjust, fickle, courteous, mild, merciful, haughty, glorious, humble, audacious and timid, all these in one.  But, dear Philothea, I would like to put into your heart both riches and poverty together, a great care and a great indifference for temporal things.

 

 Have much greater care than the worldly people to make your wealth useful and profitable.  Tell me, are not the gardeners of the great princes more careful and diligent in cultivating and beautifying the gardens they have in their charge than if they were their own?  But why is this so?  Certainly, they think of these gardens as the gardens of princes and kings.  They like to make themselves acceptable to them by these services.  Dear Philothea, the possessions which we have, are not our own.  God has given them to us to develop and wants that we make them profitable and useful and thus render him loving service in taking care of them.  This care, then, ought to be greater and more dedicated than that worldly men have for their possessions.  For thy are busy only for love of themselves but we must work for the love of God.  As self-love is a violent, agitated, eager love, so too the care taken for it is full of trouble, vexation and anxiety.  As the love of God is gentle, peaceful and tranquil the care which proceeds from it, though it is for the goods of the world, is kind, gentle and considerate.

 

Let us then have this considerate care for the preservation of our temporal goods, and even for their increase when a just occasion presents itself and insofar as our situation demands it.  For God wishes us to do so out of love for him.  But take care that self-love does not deceive you, because sometimes it imitates the love of God so well that it would appear to be genuine.  To prevent it from deceiving us, and the care of temporal goods from degenerating itself into avarice, besides what I have said in the preceding chapter. We should often practise well real and effectual poverty in the midst of all the possessions and riches God has given us.

 

Give up always a part of your resources by giving them to the poor with a generous heart.  To give away what we possess is to impoverish ourselves by so much and the more you give the more you grow poor.  It is true that God will give it back to you, not only in the next world but even in this.  In fact, there is nothing which contributes more to temporal prosperity than almsgiving.  But as you wait for God to restore it to you, till then you will be deprived of it.  How holy and rich is the impoverishment brought about by almsgiving!

 

Love the poor and poverty because by this love you will become truly poor; as Scripture says we become like the things we love (Hosea 9:10).  Love makes the lovers equal: Who is weak with whom I am not weak (2 Cor. 11:29) says St. Paul.  He could say: Who is poor with whom I am not poor? Indeed, love made him to be such as those whom he loved.  If therefore you love the poor, you will certainly share their poverty and be poor like them.  Now if you love the poor be often among them.  Be happy to see them  at you home and visit them at their homes.  Talk with them willingly.  Be quite at ease when they come near you in the church, in the streets and elsewhere.  Be poor in the language you make use of.  Speak to them like their companions but have generous hands giving them you gifts more in abundance.

 

Would you like to do still more, dear Philothea?  Do not be satisfied with being poor like the poor, but be poorer than the poor.  How is this possible? The servant is less than his master (Jn. 13:16).  Make yourself then the servant of the poor.  Go to serve them in their beds when they are sick, and this with your own hands:  Be their cook and at your own expense.  Be their tailor and washerwoman.  Dear Philothea, this service is more glorious than that of royalty.

 

I cannot admire enough the fervour with which this counsel was practised by St. Louis, one of the great kings the world has seen, but I say a great king with every kind of greatness. Very often he served at the table fo the poor whom he was maintaining.  Almost everyday he made three of them sit down at his own table, and often ate the rest of their soup with an extraordinary love.  When he visited the hospitals of the sick, which he did very often, he used to serve those who had the most loathsome diseases like the leprous, the ulcerous and others like them. He did them all this service bareheaded, kneeling on the ground, respecting in their persons the Saviour of the world, and cherishing them with a love as tender as that of a gentle mother for her child.  St. Elizabeth, daughter of the king of Hungary, usually mixed with the poor and for recreation dressed like a poor woman among her ladies, telling them: “If I were poor I would dress like this.”  Dear Philothea, this prince and princess were indeed poor amidst their riches, and rich in their poverty.

 

Blessed are those who are thus poor, for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them (Mt. 5:3).  I was hungry, you fed me.  I was cold you clothed me: Possess the Kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Mt. 25:34-36), the King of the poor and of kings will say this at the great judgement.

 

There is no one who has not experienced at times some want of lack of convenience.  Sometimes it happens that a guest comes to our house, whom we would like to and should treat well, but do not have the means at the moment.  We have fine clothes in one place, we may need them in another where we are bound to appear in public.  It happens that all the wines in our cellar ferment and turn sour, and there are left only wines that are of poor quality and immature.  We find ourselves in the country in some hovel where everything is lacking: we have neither bed, nor room, nor table, nor service.  Finally it is easy often to be in need of something, however rich we may be.  This is being effectually poor with regard to what we lack.  Philothea, be quite at ease on these occasions, accept them with a good heart, bear them cheerfully.

 

You experience some misfortunes which will impoverish you either very much or a little, such as tempests, fire, floods, droughts, thefts, lawsuits.  It is then the best time to practise poverty, accepting with gentleness this decrease of wealth, and putting up gently and perseveringly with this impoverishment.  Esau presented himself to his father, his hands all covered with hair and Jacob did the same (Gen. 27).  Since hair on the hands of Jacob did not stick to his skin but to his gloves, the hair could be removed without hurting or flaying him.  On the contrary, the hair on the hands of Esau was sticking to his skin and it was hairy by nature.  If anyone had tried to pluck off his hair, it would have caused him great pain.  He would have cried aloud and would have been provoked to defend himself.  When our resources stick to our hearts, if a tempest or a thief or a cheat takes away part of our property, what complaints, what troubles, what impatience we have!  If our goods are attached only to the care that God desires us to have for them, and not to our hearts, when they are taken away we do not lose our reason or tranquillity.  This is the difference between beasts and men as regards their garments.  The garments of beasts are stuck to their flesh, and that of men are simply placed on it so that they can put them on or remove them at will.

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