“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3
“The virtue of poverty is shown in our finishing our professional work well and in taking care of things we wear, our home and its furnishings, and the tools we use whether or not they belong to us. It shows clearly when we avoid inessential expenses even though our company pays for them.
It is also manifest if we truly never consider anything our own, and if we choose what is least attractive for ourselves provided our choice passes unnoticed. In family life, we can discover many opportunities for putting the virtue of poverty into practice.
We live the virtue well by accepting a shortage of material means with peace and calm and by avoiding capricious personal expense, vanity, luxury, and laziness. We are poor in spirit when we are consciously temperate in food and drink and always generous with others.
Francis Fernandez in In Conversation with God: Meditations for Each Day of the Year, volume 1 (London: Scepter, 1988) 192-193.
Poverty is a good virtue. Say that to yourself 10 times.
In the opening words of His famous Sermon on the Mount (also known as the Beatitudes), Jesus opens by saying the opposite of the world. That’s why we need to renew our minds with it.
The world says to possess wealth and be rich in spirit is good. Jesus says the opposite.
Later Jesus celebrated when a widow gave out of a place of poverty. Paul echoed this when the Macedonians gave out of their place of poverty.
Let’s lean into this otherworldly, heavenly idea.
Jesus modeled it, born in a manger and not having a place to lay His head. It shows that he had the one thing he needed: the kingdom or reign of God.
And he told those with wealth to give it away and grasp life 100x better than anything they could sort. Consider the implications of this for you.
I am not trying to rob you. I am trying to help you take hold of the kingdom of God.
The pathway to doing this is to pursue the virtue of poverty and Fernandez points the way in everyday work and family life for us.