Christian Mission and Poverty

Chapter 4: Holy Poverty

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rather than in me. But I never fail those who never fail in their hope. I provide for them as a kind compassionate father . . . True, I let them suffer to make them grow in faith and hope and so that I may reward them for their labors, but I never fail to give them anything they need . . . They are people in love and alive in my will, ready to endure heat, cold, and nakedness, hunger and thirst, anguish and abuse and even death, in their desire to give their life for love of Life (that is, for me, for I am their life). Look at the poor apostles and the other glorious martyrs, Peter, Paul, and Stephen. Look at Lawrence, who seems to be not over the fire but over the most pleasant of flowers, joking, as it were, with the tyrant and saying, “This side is cooked; turn it over and start eating!” The fire of divine charity was so great that in his soul’s feeling he regarded the lesser fire as nothing . . . These souls became obedient both in fact and in spirit to the commandments and to the counsels given them by my Truth. Who would not have judged that poor Lazarus was supremely miserable and the rich man quite happy and content? Yet such was not the case, for that rich man with all his wealth suffered more than poor Lazarus tormented by his leprosy. For the rich man’s [selfish] will was alive, and this is the source of all suffering. But in Lazarus this will was dead and his will was so alive in me that he found refreshment and consolation in his pain. He had been thrown out by others, especially by the rich man, and was neither cleansed nor cared for by them, but I provided that the senseless animals should lick his sores. And you see how at the end of their lives Lazarus has eternal life and the rich man is in hell.