One of my first, if not my very first, spiritual director, was a sister from the Cenacle order. She told me one day that she wanted to be like Christ in every way even in poverty, chastity, and obedience. She loved Christ so much this was her only desire.
Being very young, I wanted to emulate her poverty of heart and prayed likewise to be like Christ, as much as I was supposed to be, in everything. Sister Elizabeth's prayer was based on the Scripture passage below:
Matthew 8:20
20 And Jesus saith to him: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests: but the son of man hath not where to lay his head.
Shortly after Sister shared this with me, and after I had hesitantly (and I have to admit, halfheartedly) said this prayer, two young men, one of whom I had known for a long time, proposed to me. They were both extremely wealthy, and in fact, one was a millionaire heir of a large, national company. I said "no" to each one, not loving either one, and wanting to marry for love, of course, despite, the fact that both were good men. I went on to enter a lay community for seven years, making a four year celibate commitment as well within that time, which meant I did not date and gave my self entirely up to God. After leaving the community and going back to graduate school, I ended up teaching in England and the rest, as they say, is history.
I lived simply in all those years, and even in marriage lived simply. This plan of God's became critical as I was thrust into being a single mum and so on. From that time to this, except for a few prosperous years, my life was marked and still is, by real poverty and even, penury.
This past week, I had the chance to rejoice in this poverty, realizing how God had taken my little prayer, so long ago, seriously. To be like Christ in this world, in my very being is still, and even more so, (being in the long Dark Night of purgation), a real desire of my heart. Once one embraces the love of poverty, joy follows.
Thanking God for being faithful to me despite myself and for giving me the ability to live without even the basics sometimes, I realized, finally, the fact that I had no "stuff" to clog my heart and mind, that poverty had carved out in my heart, mind, soul and will a place for God to rest.
I am in the enviable position of having less and less between me and the daily experience of God's Presence. I would not have chosen this way.
The truth is that from baptism, God dwells within. This Indwelling of the Trinity lies within each baptized Catholic who is in sanctifying grace. One only has to allow God to remove the "stuff" which blocks the love of God in one's life to come forward in power and in peace.
I had other chances to be comfortable, through compromise, which I refused. Walking toward Christ means walking towards Golgotha. The way involves many choices, but if one is focused on Christ, one moves towards the same goal as He moved towards, the Cross.
I have many crosses, as do most people. The greatest one is not material poverty, but the fact that I have been asked to give my son back to God, which I did when he was still a baby. Or rather, I sensed almost immediately after his birth, that this child did not belong to me, but that I was merely his caretaker until God called him away from me. This is real poverty for me, knowing that my son belongs to God alone, and that I must live so far away from him and not enjoy his company even once a week, or even once a month, or even once a year. But, there is a quiet joy in this giving up of happy family events. Poverty of spirit involves giving up the heart and mind, as well as the body, to God. The imagination and will must also be given over for joy to come forth, in a quiet, but perceptible manner. One must be poor in the mind, disciplining thoughts, as well as in the body, disciplining desires.
Purgation is death, which is why so many fight it, as we all have a survival instinct. But, to face the death of purgation is to allow God to make one poor, really poor. Each soul in purgatory is totally naked in his own eyes and in the eyes of God. One sees one's real poverty of self.
Recently, a friend of mine and I were discussing death. We had experienced several deaths since the turning of the year among friends and acquaintances. All the people who had died in the past two months were younger than we are. One was a multi-millionaire, who died a strange and lonely death. In the last moments, she experienced a great poverty of spirit. No one was with her when she died.
God waits for us to get serious about Him. He waits until we are ready to understand that His Life on earth must be chosen individually. To live in the Present Moment, without a safety net, is to allow God to be God every moment of the day and night.
As I write this, yet another storm will hit this city any minute. People will experience inconvenience and hardship. Some will die. But, death can be embraced daily so that the final death on earth is merely the last scene for which one has practiced all one's life. Poverty allows one to die daily and realize daily that the last day is like this death, only final. One has no fake stage props on which to rely.
I would not choose another life now, having finally seen the jewels which surround me in the form of graces of detachment and objectivity. Like someone waking out of a long dream, I am awake to a new reality of freedom and increasing Love, Who has a name, the Lord of Poverty, Jesus Christ. Christ was hungry, He was sore from lack of comforts, He was thirsty. He even had no room to call His own once He began His public life. He chose to be like all of us, poor. His poverty was so great because He left the throne of heaven to walk among men. We cannot even comprehend His great poverty.
Things are for us to use without attachment. Things are tools for life, not substitutes for love. Love can be expressed in things, but Christ wants more than this. He wants each one to desire to be like Him in all things. To be a "slave" means that one is directly and absolutely dependent on another. Christ became a slave so that we can be raised up with Him. This rising will be fulfilled at the last trumpet, but another rising can be experienced long before that last day. This is the rising of the mind, the heart, the imagination, the will, the body to God alone in every breath that one takes each day.
Wait not until death to die to self, but follow the path now to death of self. Only when the last gasp of egotism leaves one's person can one experience the true Love of God. I am hoping for that day to happen here on earth, not only for my benefit, but for that of the entire Church, which I love more than my own self. Like Sister Elizabeth, I only want to be, as much as God called me to be, like Christ.
Philippians 2:5-7
5 Let the same mind be in you that was[a] in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form
After Raissa Maritain died, Jacques left public life and went into seclusion to pray and meditate for the rest of his days. His death to the world in which he lived so fully mirrored the death of his beloved wife and sister in grace. I like to think that Raissa's death allowed Jacques to choose his real vocation at last, that of a contemplative, like her. His hidden life gained him great freedom of spirit and in this, he found the great love which Raissa knew before she left this world, the Love Who is Christ.
The hidden life is one of poverty of spirit. I end this little meditation with a prayer I say every Friday, the Litany of Humility by Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930), Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius X:
| O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me. From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being loved... From the desire of being extolled ... From the desire of being honored ... From the desire of being praised ... From the desire of being preferred to others... From the desire of being consulted ... From the desire of being approved ... From the fear of being humiliated ... From the fear of being despised... From the fear of suffering rebukes ... From the fear of being calumniated ... From the fear of being forgotten ... From the fear of being ridiculed ... From the fear of being wronged ... From the fear of being suspected ... That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be esteemed more than I ... That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease ... That others may be chosen and I set aside ... That others may be praised and I unnoticed ... That others may be preferred to me in everything... That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should… |
