Christian Mission and Poverty

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Christian Mission and Poverty

[greed], because their hunger for money makes them think nothing of robbing their brothers [and sisters] or taking what belongs to the Church, what has been bought with the blood of the Word, my only-begotten Son. It generates trafficking in the flesh of their neighbors and selling time as usurers who like thieves sell what is not theirs to sell. It generates gluttony for too much and too many foods. And indecency, for if they had nothing to spend they would not be keeping company with such wretchedness. How many murders! How much hatred and spite toward their neighbors! What cruelty and unfaithfulness to me, because they presume on themselves as if they had acquired their wealth by their own power! They do not see that they neither gain nor keep it by their own power but only by mine. They lose their trust in me and trust only in their riches. But their trust is empty, for it will fail as soon as they have no more riches. Either they will lose them in this life by my dispensation and for their own good, or they will lose them in death. Then they will know how fickle and empty their trust was. It impoverishes and kills the soul. It makes people cruel to themselves. It takes away the worth of the infinite and makes it finite; that is, their desire, which ought to be united with me, infinite Good, is united with and set on the love of something finite. They lose their taste for virtue and for the fragrance of poverty, they lose their lordship by becoming the servants of riches. They are never satisfied, because they love something that is less than themselves. All created things were made to serve people, not for people to become their servants, and people ought to be serving me, for I am their end.