Christian Mission and Poverty

Chapter 4: Holy Poverty

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by me, Goodness itself. But I made these things to serve my rational creatures; I did not intend my creatures to make themselves servants and slave to the world’s pleasures. So if they would not go the way of great perfection, they may keep these things if they choose, but they will be servants, less than lords. They owe their first love to me. Everything else they should love and possess, as I told you, not as if they owned it but as something lent them. I am not a respecter of person or status but of holy desires. In whatever situation people may be, let their will be good and holy, and they will be pleasing to me. Who are they who possess this world’s goods in this way? Those who have cut the venomous sting off them by despising their selfish sensuality and loving virtue. Once they have cut off the venom of disorder from their will and set it in order with love and holy fear of me, they can choose and hold whatever situation they will and still be fit to have eternal life. It remains true that it is more perfect and more pleasing to me to rise above all the world’s goods in fact as well as in spirit. But those who feel that their weakness will not let them reach such perfection can travel this ordinary way according to their own situation. My goodness has ordained it thus, so that no one in any situation whatever should have an excuse for sin. Indeed they have no excuse. For I have made allowance for their passions and weaknesses in such a way that if they choose to remain in the world they can. They can possess wealth and hold positions of authority. They can be married and care for their children and toil for them. They can remain in any situation whatever, so long as