Christian Mission and Poverty

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Christian Mission and Poverty

the rule by teaching you to love and follow this poverty. And he taught you not only with words but by his example as well, from his birth right up to the end of his life. For you he took poverty as his bride, though he was wealth itself by his union with the divine nature, for he is one thing with me and I with him, eternal wealth. And if you would see him humiliated and in great poverty, look at God made man, clothed in the lowliness of your humanity. You see this gentle loving Word born in a stable while Mary was on a journey, to show you pilgrims how you should be constantly born anew in the stable of self- knowledge, where by grace you will find me born within your soul. You see him lying there among the animals, in such poverty that Mary had nothing to cover him up with. It was winter, and she kept him warm with the animals’ breath and a blanket of hay. He is the fire of charity but he chose to endure the cold in his humanity. All the while he lived he chose to suffer, whether his disciples joined him or not, as when once because of their hunger the disciples plucked ears of corn and ate the grain. At the end of his life, stripped naked, scourged at the pillar, parched with thirst, he was so poor on the wood of the cross that neither the earth nor the wood could give him a place to lay his head. He had nowhere to rest it except on his own shoulder. And drunk as he was with love, he made a bath for you of his blood when this Lamb’s body was broken open and bled from every part.