“How much money would it take for your to feel comfortable? Some studies have indicated that no matter what you earn, your so called comfort zone is just a little bit higher. Most of us seem to believe we would finally feel content if we earned a few thousand dollars more each year.
Bishop John Neumann, the fourth bishop of Philadelphia, understood the fallacy of such thinking. He took the vow of poverty he made as a Redemptorist priest so literally that he gave away virtually everything he owned. Once, when he arrived home with wet feet, someone suggested he change his shoes. He answered that if he did, it would be to put his left shoe on his right foot and vice versa since he owned only one pair. At his funeral, he was clad in a new suit of clothes for the first time in many years.
St. John Neumann did not choose a life of poverty because he enjoyed deprivation. He chose to divest himself of material possessions because he understood that the real treasures in life can never be purchased.
When we value ourselves merely for what we own, we will always be poor. Only when we realize that God values us for what we are, not what we have, do we become rich beyond measure.”
January 5 entry of 365 Saints: Your Daily Guide to the Wisdom and Wonder of their Lives, ed. by Woodeene Koenig-Bricker (New York: Harper San Francisco, 1995).