Christian Mission and Poverty

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Christian Mission and Poverty

So the rich are left sad while my poor are happy. I hold them to my breast and give them the milk of great consolation. Because they leave everything they possess me completely. The Holy Spirit becomes the nurse of their souls and their little bodies in every situation. I make the animals provide for them in this way and that, depending on their need. If a hermit is ill I make another hermit leave his cell to help him . . . In every way I provide for [my poor]. So you see, most beloved daughter, how great is the contentment and delight of these beloved poor of mine. 5. Then that soul was as if drunk with love of true holy poverty. She was filled to bursting in the supreme eternal magnificence and so transformed in the abyss of his supreme and immeasurable providence that though she was in the vessel of her body it seemed as if the fire of charity within her had taken over and rapt 4 her outside her body. And with her mind’s eye steadily fixed on the divine majesty she spoke to the high eternal Father: O eternal Father! O fiery abyss of charity! O eternal beauty, O eternal wisdom, O eternal goodness, O eternal mercy! O hope and refuge of sinners! O immeasurable generosity! O eternal, infinite Good! O mad lover! And you have need of your creature? It seems to me, for you act as if you could not live without her, in spite of the fact that you are Life itself, and everything has life from you and nothing can have life without you. Why then are you so mad? Because you have fallen in love with what you have made! You are pleased and delighted over her within yourself, as if you were drunk [with desire] for her

4 Rapt – carried away or transported