I PROMISE TO BE TRULY POOR
by
Gerald N. Alford, OCDS
In the Gospel of St. Mark (Mark 10: 21, 22), we read the story of the rich young man who asked Jesus for a formula of perfection: What must I do to be perfect?
Jesus' initial answer to obey the commandments did not satisfy him.
The rich young man was obviously a good young man. He emphatically stated
that he had followed the commandments from youth. The truthfulness of his
claim seemed confirmed by Jesus' response: the gospel account tells us that
Jesus looked upon him and loved him. This rich young man obviously had
incorporated the commandments in his life which made him pleasing to God.
However, this alone did not satisfy him; he wanted something more; a greater
perfection.
Isn't this the situation of most of us in seeking admission into formation
in the Secular Order of Carmel? We want to go beyond the Third Mansion. We
are saying it is not enough for us to simply obey and keep the commandments,
to avoid sin and being what most people regard as good Catholics. We feel
a desire for a deeper union with God; for an intimate relationship with Him.
After two and a-half years of consideration and formation, we decide that
this way of Carmel is the way of following Jesus into greater perfection,
and so we make at first a temporary and then a final commitment to tend to
perfection in the spirit of the evangelical counsels and of the beatitudes
according to the Rule of Life given us by our Carmelite
order.
In considering at the counsel of Poverty, we regard that rich young man
to see what proved to be the obstacle which kept him from walking with Jesus
into deeper union with the Father in the
Spirit.
When Jesus told the young man that in order to achieve the greater perfection
he was seeking he should sell all that he had and then follow Him, the young
man walked away sad for he had many possessions. What proved to be the obstacle
to that young man in following Jesus, at least at that time, was a spirit
of posssessiveness about what he owned. He lacked the spirit of poverty necessary
to respond to Jesus' call.
The call to poverty we answer as secular Carmelites is not the radical
poverty which is practiced by those called to the religious life. As Secular
Order members we are not making a promise of poverty as a religious makes
a vow of poverty. When a religious makes a vow of poverty he/she makes a
solemn commitment to voluntarily give up the right to ownership to anything.
The religious may have use of temporal goods as the Order provides, but can
not claim them to be for his/her exclusive use absolutely. Obviously, as
people living in the world we can not necessarily make that kind of commitment.
Some individuals can and do, but it can not be a requirement otherwise it
might very easily violate the nature of our vocation as Carmelite seculars
in so far as our Rule is to subserve the secular state of life of its members,
not change it. See p. 88 of Fr. Griffin commentary as to why Seculars do
not make a Vow of poverty.
Nevertheless, we are promising to follow Christ in our state of life in
the world according to the spirit of poverty required by Christ in order
to be perfect, that is, to be through and through His, to belong thoroughly
to God and have God Alone as our sole possession. So the question we continually
have to ask ourselves in following Christ in this spirit of Poverty prescribed
by the Good News, the Gospel, is this: what is our relationship to the goods
of this world which we now have in our possession? We continually need to
test our spirit in regard to material possessions, and continually be on
guard against an inordinate acquisitive and possessive spirit.
In Chapters 1 and 2 of St. Teresa's WAY OF PERFECTION, we find Holy Mother
giving reasons for reforming the Order and providing a definition of the
Carmelite Vocation. In Chapter 2, she takes up the question of poverty. In
doing so, she emphasized the importance of being poor in spirit. She noted:
...although I had professed poverty, I was not only without poverty of
spirit, but my spirit was devoid of all restraint. Poverty is good and contains
within itself all the good things in the world. It is a great domain - I
mean that he who cares nothing for the good things of the world has dominion
over them all....and what do...honors [of kings and lords] mean to me if
I have realized that the chief honor of a poor man consists in his being
truly poor. (41-42)
Obviously, for Teresa, to be truly poor means to be POOR IN
SPIRIT.
As Carmelites we commit ourselves to live a life of perfection according
to the evangelical counsels and the beatitudes. Being poor is spirit, of
course, is the first BEATITUDE. This beatitude is one of those referred to
by spiritual writers as an "antidote beatitude." An antidote is something
one takes to counteract a poison of some kind. Being poor in spirit is the
antidote against the poison of possessiveness. Looking back at that rich
young man in the Gospel, we said that the obstacle which prevented him from
following Jesus was his attachment to his possessions - his possessiveness.
By possessiveness of course we mean a grasping, a holding on to something,
whether it be a material good or a spiritual good as if we possess it by
right, by dominion, by an ownership. This is contrary to St. Paul's realization,
later emphasized by Therese among others, that ultimately everything is gift.
When we view everything as implicitly or explicitly a gift, then we have
the perspective which fosters the spirit of poverty.
When we are poor in spirit , we have this attitude of detachment toward
possessions of any kind, material or spiritual. For you see, having possessions
is not the real problem. What is the problem is how possessive we are about
what we have. I think that is the heart of St. John of the Cross' teaching
about detachment which is not always understood or appreciated.
In ASCENT, Book I, Chapter 3, St. John is describing how detachment is
like a night to the soul and he says:
we are not treating here of the lack of things, since this [the mere lack
of things]implies no detachment on the part of the soul if it has a desire
for them; but we are treating of detachment from them with respect to taste
and desire, for it is this [detachment from desire] that leaves the soul
free and void of them although it may have
them.
Remember what Teresa said - "...he who cares nothing [that is, controls
his desire] for the good things of the world has dominion over them all."
True freedom does not necessarily mean being without things, but having control
over our desire for these things. We are not free by the mere fact of material
poverty. It is not enough to simply give up possessions, if after the
renunciation of the superfluous, the comforts and the conveniences of life,
we still remain attached to them by affection. For as St. John reminds us
again in Chapter 3:
It is not the things of this world that either occupy the soul or cause
it harm, since they enter it not, but rather the will and desire for them,
for it is these that dwell within it.
After the rich young man walked away sad, because he had many possessions,
Jesus commented: How hard it is for the RICH to enter into the kingdom of
heaven.
The rich, those who possess a great deal, have difficulty not because
of what they have; they have difficulty because it is so difficult for them
not to be inordinately possessive about what they have. Those who are materially
or physically poor can have the same problem: they may not possess much,
but they may desire much.
When Jesus told his disciples, for example, that it was easier for a camel
to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved. He certainly
did not mean that a person rich in worldly goods could not be saved. His
point was that salvation or the possession of divine life could not be had
at all, by rich or poor. To be saved, to share in God's life is impossible
for man, period. God alone can save us and give us a share in his very life.
EVERYTHING IS A GIFT.
So you see what is at stake in being truly poor is our attitude toward
possession itself and the perspective in which we view the material and spiritual
goods we have. We can be materially rich or poor by circumstance or by luck,
but we can only be truly poor, poor in spirit, by will, by desire, by intention
and really only by Grace.
To be truly poor in spirit means to live according to the truth of who
we really are. To develop this sense of reality which is the basis of a true
spirit of poverty, we need that Gift of the Holy Spirit which is Knowledge.
This Gift enables us to know God and know ourselves in TRUTH. Such knowledge
provides us with the true perspective and sense of reality. It is the science
of the saints. When we truly know who God is and who we are in relation to
God, how can we help but be left with a spirit and attitude of poverty. How
truly poor we are even at our best and most beautiful in comparison to One
who is so infinitely and supremely perfect. As Jesus tells us, even when
you have done all that you were ordered to do, say: we are useless servants;
we have done only what we ought to have done.
In the realization of our poverty, the virtue which sustains us is the
theological virtue of hope. How can we, poor creatures that we are, attain
to the God Whom we believe to be so pure and good, so infinitely perfect
and supreme! The realization of who He is and who we are could only lead
to despair if we were not empowered by the virtue of Hope which enables us
to have trust and confidence in attaining to the perfection of our calling
as children of God in and through the merits of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ.
When Jesus pointed out to the disciples how difficulty it was for a rich
man to be saved, they rightly replied in exasperation: then who indeed can
be saved. And Jesus' answer was: NO ONE - no matter how rich they were in
earthly power or heavenly power, that is virtue, no one has the power to
save him- or herself and gain the kingdom on his or her own.
We speak of the Carmelite way of following Jesus as an apophatic way,
the via negativa. We mean that it is the way to God through negation, stripping
away of delusions / illusions about God in preparation for the truth or
self-revelation God makes of Himself to us; the illumination of our minds
and hearts by the Spirit. It is the way of NADA, "nothing." St. John of the
Cross advises us: "In order to possess everything (TODA), desire to possess
nothing." (Ascent I, 13,11) You see, the NADA of John of the Cross is not
a sterile emptiness, but a preparation for the TODA. God replaces our ideas,
our concepts, our images we have of Him, always doomed to be imperfect and
untruthful even at their best, with Himself, in so far as He desires to reveal
Himself to us. We seek to be poor, to be empty, not for the sake of emptiness,
but so that we can be filled with God.
The spirit of poverty requires then a complete, humble realization of
our dependency upon God. Above all we must be empty of any confidence in
ourselves relative to spiritual progress. God does not lead us into a higher
spiritual life, nor deeper intimacy with Himself until we lose all vestiges
of confidence, even the most subtle, in our own strength, initiatives, knowledge
or virtues.
The direction to the spirit of poverty is the direction God took in becoming
man: kenosis: self-emptying. We read a number of times in the Divine Office
that passage from St. Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter 2, which
we read at Evening Prayer I yesterday:
Though he was in the form of God,
Jesus did not deem equality with God
something to be grasped at.
Rather, he emptied himself
and took the form of a slave,
being born in the likeness of man.
If we wish to be united to God, we must do exactly what the Word did to
become united to man. Just as Jesus was willing to let go of his divine status
(not his divine nature) in order to become man, so we must be willing to
let go of any status we may acquire as man in order to become like God. Because
we are in reality so poor, that is, so dependent upon God in the order of
the supernatural and its end, intimate union with God, we can only desire
to strive for such an attitude of poverty. However, in cultivating such a
desire to follow Jesus on this path of humility toward nothingness, we take
hope in the teaching of Drs. John of the Cross and Therese who taught that
we would not have such a desire if God did not plan to fulfill it. This assumes
that it is truly a desire and not just wishful thinking or daydreaming. We
pray for an efficacious desire characterized by perseverance in striving
"to seek not the best of temporal things, but the worst..." and a striving,
for God's sake, "to desire to enter into complete detachment and emptiness
and poverty with respect to everything that is in this world." (Ascent I,
13.6)
The spirit of poverty involves such an emptying of all ego claims to status
and loss of confidence in our own power. Such emptiness must be in regard
to both material and spiritual acquisitions. We always must be willing to
let go of what we consider to be pleasing to God for the sake of being truly
pleasing to Him as He desires us to be.
The Carmelite way of poverty is the way of "no-gain". When a novice sighed
about her lack of virtue and progress in the spiritual life, and bemoaned
how much yet she had to gain, Therese answered: "No, rather so much yet to
lose!"
In practicing poverty what do we need to lose? That is the question!
Certainly, we must strive to lose the spirit of acquisition. We want to be
empty so that we can be filled with God. Make "room in our inn" for God!
What more do we need to lose? We must lose too a spirit of possessiveness
about even those things we need to have in order to live simply in our particular
state of life in the world. We must strive for a sense of simplicity by acquiring
only what we need, and by losing any sense of possessiveness about even those
goods.
What an ideal! And as in the case of all ideals, we must view this one
with the spirit of poverty, recognizing that all we can do is "endeavor to
be inclined always towards" fulfilling such an aspiration. An important part
of the way to this perfection of spiritual poverty is the "way of imperfection."
It is our failures and deficiencies which make us realize how truly poor
we are and dependent upon God. God truly then becomes our sufficiency as
St. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians: 3, 5. When we are emptied of confidence
in ourselves and filled with trust and confidence in God, then we are disposed
for total conversion. St. Teresa confessed in her LIFE (chapter 8) that what
prevented her from overcoming the last obstacles was really a remnant of
confidence which she still had in herself. She wrote: "I must have failed
to put my whole confidence in His Majesty and to have a complete distrust
of myself."
After we have done all that we have been commanded, as that rich, young
man could say, and then have left everything behind in terms of acquisition
and possessiveness to follow Jesus; after we have done all this and can say
with sincerity: I am a useless, an unprofitable servant; then we are on the
WAY. The final word, after our admission of poverty and unprofitableness,
must be: O God, I place all my trust and confidence in you. And not only
say it, but live it.
Our confidence in God can never be excessive or exaggerated. Blind, unlimited
hope in God is what will sustain within us a genuine spirit of poverty. It
is so pleasing to God that St. John of the Cross teaches: "The more the soul
hopes, the more it attains." (Ascent III, 7,2) And Dr. Therese, who lived
her life according to this spirit of poverty based on hope practiced as boundless
trust and confidence in God, made this thought of St. John her own and wrote:
"We can never have too much confidence in the good God who is so powerful
and so merciful. We obtain from Him as much as we hope for."
As a final word, we go back to the response of Jesus to the rich, young man in answer for his request for a formula for following Him perfectly -
Jesus told him that perfection consisted in selling all he owned, giving
the profits to the poor and then come and follow Him.
Our model in a way of understanding what this might mean for ourselves
is Therese. Over the years in her spiritual journey, her life was a process
of "selling all that she had" As a religious, materially speaking, she did
this in a more radical way than most of us can do in our state of life as
secular Carmelites. But she was a model to us in living out the spirit of
poverty to its fullest and in a real way adhering to what Christ asked: that
we not only sell all that we have, but we give to the poor what we earned
from this selling. Therese came to the point where she prayed to be dispossessed
of any and all merits she may have earned by her practice of virtue, and
to have all these merits given to the "poor," those souls in need. She wanted
to come to God completely stripped, with empty hands, without any merits
accrued for herself, but all merits used for the sake of
sinners.
Our personal sanctification as Carmelites is not a dead-end street; if
it is, then it truly is a way which ends in death to true sanctification.
Initially, we may need to make our sanctification paramount, but the closer
we come to God and the more we participate in God's life, the more effusive
we become in our concern about others. We truly thirst with Christ for souls:
their salvation and sanctification. And so we become like Therese willing
to appear before God with empty hands, having given away what "we may have
acquired" through our ascetical and virtuous practices for the sake of others.
To reach such an attitude of poverty is something worth hoping and praying
for.
Holy mother, Teresa, holy father, John, inspire us. Dr. Therese, teach
us. Our Carmelite brother and sisters in Glory, pray for
us.