Christian Mission and Poverty

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Christian Mission and Poverty

you: you keep as much as I allow you to keep; and I give and let you keep as much as I see would be good for you. This is the spirit in which people should use things, and if they do, they will be keeping the command that you love me above all things and your neighbor as your very self. They will live with their heart emptied of material things, cutting them off from their affection. In other words, they will neither love nor possess them apart from my will. Though they may in fact have possessions, they will be following the counsel in spirit by cutting off from themselves the venomous sting of disordered love. This is the way of ordinary love. But those who keep the commandments and counsels actually as well as in spirit go the way of perfect love. They follow in true simplicity the counsel my Truth, the incarnate Word, gave to that young man when he asked, “What can I do, Master, to win eternal life?” He said, “Keep the commandments of the Law.” The other answered, “I do keep them.” And he said, “Well, if you want to be perfect go and sell what you have and give to the poor.” Then the young man was sad. He was still too much in love with what wealth he had, and that is why he was sad. But those who are perfect heed what he said. They let go of the world and all its pleasures. They discipline their bodies with penance and vigils, with constant humble prayer. Those, however, who go the way of ordinary love without actually rising above material things (for they are not obliged to do so) do not thereby forfeit eternal life. But if they wish to have this world’s goods they must possess them in the way I told you. To have these things is not sinful. After all, everything is good and perfect, created