The Beatitude of Poverty

Starting with the very first followers of Christ, Christians have abandoned everything to follow the Lord. Nets, livelihoods, social status, friends and even family have all been forsaken for the promises of Christ. He promised beatitude, and this blessedness is somehow a both a return to the human thriving that we were meant to have and, at the same time, something totally new, a happiness so great that it reaches beyond the limits of the present life. Why would anyone forsake good things except with the hope of pursuing something better? This something better Christ calls the Kingdom of God and the Poor of Spirit possess this kingdom.

The theological tradition connects this Kingdom as the realization of the perfection of charity, friendship love of God. It is a mystery realized through pursuing the freedom to love one another in the life of the Church. The evangelical counsel of povery is a means to this beatitude insofar as it directs believers to renounce any obstacle to the perfect possession of God. Having freely set aside worldly goods for the sake of the Kingdom, the Holy Spirit is able to enrich such souls more radically in the reign of Christ until they participate with Him in making all things new.

The beatitude of poverty is about a radical freedom to follow the Lord. Through the centuries, the Church discerned how the counsels of Christ were ordered to the newness of the Kingdom of God and the freedom for a more perfect love this newness makes possible. These came out of the sayings of Christ, sayings that He did not command but recommended to his followers. They involves renunciation of something good for something better. Poverty renounces earthly posssessions for the freedom to possess God more perfectly. Chastity renounces marriage and the goods of marriage for the freedom for a deeper intimacy with Christ and for a greater spiritual fruitfulness in the mission of the Church. Obedience renounces one's own will to love and plan for the freedom to more perfect follow God's plan and His loving will in every moment. Accordingly, the Church discerns the threefold counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience as great goods that open up manifold ways of life and charisms in the Church. Each are helpful means in pursuing perfect charity, a perfect following of Chirst. Each leads a follower of Christ into a more radical and profound following of Him than can be achieved if the counsel were ignored or avoided.

While the faithful are not always obliged to follow the counsels to the same radical extent, the counsels can be followed in transitory acts or as a way of life. The Holy Spirit prompts some to follow radically with their whole way of life until what they possess, their sexuality and their deepest gift of freedom is entirely given to the Lord. While these counsels are not obligatory, those who profess to follow the counsels as a whole way of life are considered consecrated to the Lord, His special possession in the Church. While not every follower has the gift to profess the counsels with the whole of their lives, every follower has the grace to discern how they live their lives in light of the counsels. This means that the Holy Spirit may move a member of the faithful to continence for a time even if he is married, or to an act of obedience to an ecclesial authority such as a spiritual director even if he is not vowed to obedience.

Following or not these movements of the Spirit do not entail sin for those who are not consecrated. That is, if someone who is not consecrated by profession to the counsels resists a prompting or invitation, they have not rejected God. Yet, if they want to grow spiritually, they should always ask themselves about their resistance to God's invitations to something better. The same is true for professed religious who struggle with their vows. Their profession should open up a pathway to a more perfect following of Chirst, and if it is not, then this is something that needs to be prayed over. Counsel should be sought. Whether professed or not, whatever is holding a believer back from a more perfect following of Christ is something the Lord wants to help him with. Learning to submit whatever it is to the Lord becomes a very important moment of growth in the spiritual life.

This brings us back to the blessedness of spiritual poverty. The evangelical counsel is directed to this blessedness. Following the prompting of hte Holy Spirit, a soul can overcome a certain kind of possessiveness, even in regard spiritual things, that holds it back from the freedom of loving God and neighbor more perfectly. This means, those who follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit to renounce good things, even spiritually good things, find a capacity to receive greater blessings from God. As they renounce what they do not need, they dispose themselves to something exceedingly better not only for themselves but for the Church and the whole world. It is not simply about renouncing an individual good for the common good, though this is often done by heroic souls. Instead, it is about allow God to raise a soul beyond all percieved individual goods and even the percieved common good to the eternal good that He Himself is. In Him, what is good for the individual and for the whole of society coincide.

St. Thomas discusses this in the Summa Theologica, II-II, q 19, art 12. He situates the beatitude of poverty in the his discussion of the virtue of hope. The blessedness of poverty results when the Holy Spirit moves a soul with fear of the Lord to perfect its hope. In other words, for St. Thomas, the poor of spirit are those who have realized a perfect hope. All the difficult and painful sacrifices and renunciations that they have made for love of God disposed them to this holy fear, so that following the counsel really helped them come into this perfection. But the filial fear is a movement of the Holy Spirit in them, not anything that they self generated. This filial fear is nothing other than the reverence of Christ to the Father communicated to the soul - it is a reverence filled with and animated by love. Christ's holy fear moving in the soul through the power of the Holy Spirit perfects its hope until it knows a certain kind of happiness, a profound kind of human thriving that actually anticipates heaven.

For St. Thomas, human thriving is never something strictly individual. It is not primarily a psychic state or a spiritual achievement. It is a gift that raises a soul to be like the Trinity. This means, the soul enters into a participation of the interpersonal life of God. Here, we might ponder how the Father has given everything to His Son in the power of the Holy Spirit and how the Son rejoices in all that is given and gives thanks to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. This implies that the soul, to be like God, must somehow be fruitful, must somehow be able to generate something that it can receive and offer to God in thanksgiving.

What is the spiritual fruit that a soul discovers in the blessedness of poverty? St. Thomas says that it consists in modesty, chastity and constancy. As spiritual fruit, these are goods to be enjoyed for the building up of the Body of Christ and for the glory of hte Father. Fruit is shared with others. A spiritual fruit strengthens and encourages, it enriches and delights until a soul finds itself yearning to produce the same fruit, until it stretches itself out in the pursuit of a perfect hope. This is especially true of spiritual fruit that are meant to enrich our sexuality. At a time of extreme sexual dysphoria, of extreme boorishness, this time when paradoxically very few live as if love were meant to be forever, in these times, it is the poor of spirit who provide the spiritual fruit that strengthen and heal us to live chaste, modestly, and continent for love of God and neighbor.

In a world inclined to boorish despair, a soul that knows the blessedness of poverty helps other souls find hope. It helps them raise their hearts above boorish pursuits and to long for more blessed things. It instill a sense that their is somehting great and good about the life God has given us and that rendering sacrifices and renunciations is not without purpose, but that something profoundly worthwhile is at stake. Those who know the blessedness of poverty help everyone realize that God has put something wonderful within reach and that it is worth the effort to strive for it.

Christ in an "orans" or praying position on a capital from the remains of an ancient Church in Dubrovnik.