Abbey-Roads2

Blessed are the poor in spirit. 

What is poverty of spirit anyway?  I can’t get all theological about it because I’m not well educated in theology.  I can only write what I think about it, or what I think it is.

It doesn’t mean you have to be dirt poor of course, people of great wealth have been, and are poor in spirit.  Look at St. Louis, King of France or other extremely wealthy saints.  Now Angela of Foligno, and Francis and Clare of Assisi embraced holy poverty with great fervor, preferring abject poverty to everything else.  Although blessed by lofty mystical graces, these saints were also extremely poor in spirit.

I would rather lie abject on the threhold of the House of God…

The line from this psalm was given to me by my Father Master in the monastery.  “I would rather lie abject on the threshold of the house of God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.”- Ps 84:11  Father gave me the old translation which was from the Mass of St. Benedict Joseph Labre.

This morning at Mass I felt I understood this on a deeper level.  I came to church with a sense of abjection, experiencing my complete spiritual poverty and inability to practice virtue, much less pray.  I realized how wonderful this knowledge of self is - this honesty in prayer, stripped of all pretense.  How “deep calls unto deep” - the depth of my poverty and misery, my sinfulness and spiritual impotence,  calls out to the depths of merciful love.  It seemed to me I understood what Therese meant when she said she rejoiced in her imperfections, her littleness.  And when she insisted, that even if she had on her soul the most horrible sins, she would throw herself into the arms of Jesus with confidence in His merciful love.

Everything is a gift.

This may sound strange, but I was happy to find myself so desolate, so completely devoid of any virtue, so unmortified, and weak, as well as inconsistent.  I can’t exactly recall the quote from Little Therese, but she said something to the effect, that it is so good to find oneself always on the ground, always imperfect, always poor - especially when others see you there.  I kind of think this is similar to what Fr. Silouane meant when he said, “Keep thy soul in hell . . . and despair not.” - that mysterious quote Don Marco placed on the blog yesterday.

I think poverty of spirit has to do with recognizing everything is a grace, that of ourselves we are nothing.  And for me this means that I have great confidence in the mercy of Jesus, who is irresistibly attracted to losers. 

The poor are humble.

Now some will say I’m really speaking of humility here, yet if you consider that Christ emptied himself and took the form of a slave, it is true, that he abased himself and embraced extreme humility.  Nevertheless he first emptied himself, which is as much to say, he became poor.

In our day, wealth and affluence is highly esteemed, although, a great education and multiple degrees are also prized as the means to these things.  We live in a country where a great percentage of people are highly educated with one or two college degrees under their belts.  And of course, intellectuals sometimes are considered the elite in our culture.  It is a form of riches and a source of great pride for many.

Humility and poverty go hand in hand.

Nevertheless, when we become so conscious of our intelligence and pedigree, even if one is not materially well off, there can be a sense of superiority over others because we know ourselves to be better educated.  We may easily dismiss the poor, the uneducated, or those steeped in popular culture, as the Phairisee had dismissed the Publican.  This log of academic achievement, just as material wealth and affluence, can obstruct the reality of our nothingness before God.

Our self-esteem can be so great, we begin to despise the notion of poverty of spirit, prefering instead to focus our attention upon eliminating the material poverty of the underclass; or in Bono’s case, that of the Third World.  That isn’t a bad thing however. 

Humiliations lead one on the way to humility, which leads us to be convinced of our poverty, our nothingness.  I think that is why God allows us to fall so many times, or to find ourselves humilited before others, since our ego is such a hard nut to crack.

Nevertheless, the real grace is when we actually see ourselves poor - when we experience it - there is something liberating in that.  In fact, I’m convinced it carries with it a great freedom of spirit, allowing us to experience (maybe not ‘feel’ however) that interior joy of the Holy Spirit - even in our abjection.