Christian Mission and Poverty

Chapter 4: Holy Poverty

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making room for the other more general calling as a faithful expression of Christian practice. By doing this, she is able to engage in extreme actions herself on behalf of the poor while not making a legalistic declaration that all Christians must live in exactly the same manner. While it may sound strange or offensive to hear what sounds like Catherine glorifying poverty, we should not interpret her as saying it is good not to have enough to live on. She took a vow to pursue poverty as part of her religious vocation. At the same time, as with the other writers we have read, Catherine maintains that Christian mission can never be divorced from action on behalf of and alongside the poor. This reading begins as God’s words to Catherine and ends as her prayer to God. 1. . . . Those who would possess the gold of this world’s goods acquire and possess it by the light of reason. But those who would go the way of great perfection spurn that gold in actuality as well as in spirit. These follow both materially and in spirit the counsel given and bequeathed by my Truth, while those with possessions keep the commandments, but observe the counsels in spirit only. However, since the counsels are bound up with the commandments, no one can keep the commandments without following the counsels at least in spirit if not materially. Though they may possess the riches of the world, they must own them humbly, not with pride, as things lent to them rather as their own—for in my generosity I give you these things for your use. You have as much as I give Text The Dialogue