A poor and simple lifestyle

Yet another element which determines the visibility of these communities is our lifestyle of poverty and simplicity. It is through authentic poverty that we put into practice the transparency and coherence of our religious profession as disciples of Jesus, the poor man who loved the poor. The religious poverty which makes us more available to serve the Gospels and our generous devotion to those in greatest need are in themselves both mission and declaration of the Beatitudes of the Kingdom.

Personal and community poverty is an essential condition for our credibility and young people have a particular knack of perceiving it. In the face of the attitudes and values of the dominant culture, the radical life of evangelical poverty provides counter-cultural testimony to the evangelical value of the generosity and transparency of how we wish to live in God and for God, without trusting to material well-being.

Following Christ the poor man means sharing, in a bold and prophetic gesture, the material and social aspects of poverty, as well as its theological and spiritual implications. Hence a prophetic lifestyle that imitates Christ demands trust in the poverty of resources, the practice of a simple life, generosity and a welcoming attitude and being available to all who approach us and our communities, especially those to whom the doors of the powerful are closed.

Therefore, if in our chapter documents and our solemn and public declarations we speak of choosing a poor life amongst the poor but afterwards our daily lives and our communities give evidence of economic abundance and well-being, far removed from that material poverty we said we intended to assume, it will be difficult to communicate to others the desire to follow Jesus the poor man. Our evangelical visibility and transparency will count for nothing.