DESIRING TO BE POOR IN SPIRIT
During these few Sundays before Lent, the Gospels focus on the Sermon on the Mount. I can’t help but be continuously drawn to the phrase ‘Blessed are the poor in Spirit”. What a strange thing to say! In the worldly sense, poverty is nearly always associated with misery, suffering and discontent. Yet, poverty can also bring blessing. I am drawn to reflect on religious, who have taken a vow of poverty, promising everything to God alone and living simply. I recently talked to a religious sister who said about this very thing that “by being so detached from this world, I am reminded of my own smallness, and am free to enjoy all that my Father has given me with a spirit of gratitude. Then, when He asks for it back, I give with joy, because it was never mine in the first place!”
Her words deeply struck me, and I began to think: detachment from physical goods is hard enough as is, but what if that is not the only area where we experience poverty? Am I willing to follow God even if it strips away all that I consider to be the foundation of who I am as a person? Talents, time, personality, memories, even spiritual gifts we have been given, all these things are secondary to the knowledge that we are first sons and daughters of the King. Yet, the loss of any of these can be a deep experience of inadequacy and poverty. Someone else is chosen or praised before or instead of you, an injury keeps you from ordinary life, you suffer from someone deeply misunderstanding your intentions, all of these are an experience of poverty.
What a gift then, that we have so many things to offer our Lord! What a gift that these things are secondary! This gives us the freedom to live in gratitude rather than grasping at things. To see everything as a gift from a Father who loves us, rather than something we must maintain or earn.
Our Lord asks us then, to not cling to any of these things, even what we consider to be so critical to our lives and wellbeing and instead cling to Him. To practice this “poverty of Spirit” then we will see the kingdom of God. I think maybe what that looks like while we are still on earth is this. When we stop clinging to the world, perhaps we will have eyes like Christ, we will recognize Him when He works and will be given great peace and the wisdom to strive after Him first and above all things.
May God instill in our hearts the desire for Him alone, the wisdom to seek Him first, and the ability to joyfully give what He asks of us.
~Bernadette Demers, Youth Discipleship Associate