3) We do not forget that the meaning of our poverty is not, above all, socio-economic, but theological.

Let’s go now into the real meaning, the root of our poverty. And, to this respect, let’s not impoverish poverty reducing it only to a matter of money! It is true that money has to do with it; but because it has to do me, it has to do with economic reality and with aspects of my life. But, the poverty revealed by Christ and in Christ is something more profound. If already talking about the human reality of poverty we discover that it has a wider and richer horizon, with much more reason when we penetrate in its evangelical meaning.          

            And, in fact, one of the biggest merits of the Exhortation “Consecrated Life” has been exactly that one of bringing us from an economic-oriented vision and in a way a materialist one of religious poverty to the one that really belongs to it, which is the Christological-Trinitarian root. If it is in Christ, namely, in the Incarnated Word where we should find the mystery of our life, namely, to which the Father has called us and from where we come, where we are, and towards we go…, it is obvious that it is also the meaning of CL and any of its elements; in this case, poverty.

            Within an accomplished and synthetic synthesis, the Exhortation talks us consequently about the Christological-Trinitarian, prophetical, ecclesiastical, and apostolic meaning of Christian poverty of the religious person. I limit myself to remind the most significant texts, leaving to you the profound examining that I would say even “mystic”. Afterwards, we will stop in some of its practical aspects and its consequences.      

Evangelical poverty – says the Exhortation – is a clear and concrete means of living and proclaiming that:       

“God is the only real richness of man. Experienced on Christ’s example (Christological aspect) that «though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor» (2Cor 8,9; cf. Phl 2,5-11), it becomes an expression of the total gift that the three divine Persons (Trinitarian aspect) reciprocally perform. It is a gift that overflows in the creation and manifests itself fully in the Incarnation of The Word and in his redeeming death (again, the Christological aspect)” (VC 21c; cf. 22b).

In this way, the religious person:

“imitating the poverty of Christ (Christological aspect), confesses him (apostolic-prophetic aspect) Son who all receives from the Father and, in the love, he returns all (cf. Jh 17,7.10) (Trinitarian aspect)” (VC 16c).

If we do not reach to discover and to be at the root of this basis, we are still outside the Gospel; we have not understood anything of our life (and it happens!, provided in our culture we are liable to understand and judge things from their external, empirical and material viewpoint). And it is out of this fact that arises the external, apostolic, testimonial and prophetical meaning of our poverty. Actually, in front of a society in which there is:

“a materialism eager for possession, inattentive towards the demands and the sufferings of the weakest and lacking consideration for the equilibrium of natural resources (the ecological problem)” (VC 89a),

our poverty appears as a charisma of simplicity, separation, solidarity and fraternity with everybody, to begin with the ones that are mostly in need, “the predilection for the poor, and the promotion of justice” (VC 82). A charisma that pushes us to have even a preferential love – not exclusive – for the poor (VC 82, 90). The poor, actually, become the first – not the only ones – after that One, who is the real first One and the only One: God. And all this, says still the Exhortation, the religious person lives it with:

“overabundance of gratitude and love, and much more in a world that risks being suffocated in the whirlpool of the ephemeral” (VC 105a).

A charisma that demands to be lived as Jesus lived it (Christological aspect): in humbleness, simplicity, solidarity and hospitality overcoming any type of exploitation, consumption and becoming a bourgeois.

            Having said this, let’s see more concretely what has meant in Christ and what consequently should mean to us. In the end, in the fourth item, we will see some practical consequences.        

a.         We should see the meaning of our poverty within the context of Christian poverty in general; and this is just the representation, extension and completion in the history of the poverty of Christ  (cf. Col 1,24) ¹¹.

So, as I have already mentioned before, when we think about the poverty of Christ we tend to simply remain in whatever there is of external and superficial. But, in Jesus, the external manifestations of something –in this case poverty – do have a value, though relative, namely, as an expression of an internal reality. As in any of us. In this way, for example, when we read that “He did not have where to lay His head” (Mt 8,20; cf. Lk 9,58), it is talked about something external; the meaning at the root of his poverty should instead be sought in something that is more intimate and profound. And, in fact, the reason and the meaning of his poverty, we found it explained in some texts of Paul:  

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2Cor 8,9; cf. 5,21; VC 21c).

Statement widely described in the Christological hymn of the letter to the Philippians:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Plp 2,5-8).

The fundamental poverty of Christ, which is at the basis of all the possible external manifestations is this annihilation, draining (ekénosen), dispossession, impoverishment; in a word, the Incarnation; the katábasis, as Greek Fathers used to say: the descent; The Word (logos, being so rich) he becomes flesh (sarx, he became poor) (cf. Jh 1,14); the Son became Jesus of Nazareth. The Father confines His treasury (the Son) in earthen vessels of our human fragility (cf. 2Cor 4,7): in the tender flesh of the child from Betlemme, in the human word of the preacher that not everybody will understand, in the

tortured body of the crucifix in the Calvary, in the Christ resurrected and glorified but who keeps still and for ever the signs of the nails and the side injure (cf. Jh 20,25-29).

            In fact, this fundamental poverty consists in the voluntary renouncement, for the love to the Father and to men who became His brothers in flesh, to the precedent divine situation and to its prerogatives: the fact of having been made like us, and consequently “poor”, limited, subjected to the human creatural reality, “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rm 8,3), “was made lower than the angels” (Hb 2,9), “like his brothers in every respect” (Hb 2,17), “but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hb 4,15) ¹². Which means: subjected to the poverty of physical pain, of the lack of goods, to have to grow up and learn humanly (Lk 2,40.52), to the passion and death; subjected to the poverty of psychic pain and of incomprehension, of not achieving to make himself understood and accepted, of distortion (Lk 11,15; Jh 6,15), of calumny, of insult… Poverty that means renouncement to his own divine powers in His favor, as appears in the temptation (Mt 4,3.6.9), in Gethsemane (Mt 26,53-54), in front of Caifa (Mt 26,63-64), and of Pilate (Jh 18,37), on the cross (Mt 27,42-43): a constant provocation to make use of the divine powers in His favor, to which he had renounced! Furthermore, once dead, when he could no longer defend himself, he is prevented from the reason for which he had lived, and made guilty of what he had always rejected (Jh 6,15), namely, the political reason: “Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross; it read, »Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews».” (Jh 19,19).  They wanted to destroy him and humiliate him, thoroughly and forever, preventing him even from the possibility of claiming his Cause. However, the Father, will give Him the reason by resurrecting Him.           

            Summing up, behind the external manifestations of poverty, appears His bottom poverty: he became like us, to make us become like Him (cf. 2Cor 8,9). And the reason of this impoverishment (Incarnation) is His obedience to the Father (Hb 10,7; Jh 4,34; 5,30; Phl 2,8; Rm 5,19; Hb 5,8). An obedience that is not slavery and oppression, but a free expression of His unconditional love to the Father, who carries him to live in an attitude of unconditional love to men His brothers, becoming solidary until the death (Jh 3,16; 15,9.12-14; 17,21-23; Mc 10,45; Phl 2,5-8): “because I lay down my life, that I may take it again”.  (Jh 10,17-18). Beginning so from the external visible reality and going until the deepest reason, we see that the process is: the external poverty as a consequence (effect) of the internal one (the Incarnation), which is a consequence of His obedience to the Father, which is a consequence of His love to the Father in the intra-Trinitarian life:

“…of the thorough gift that the three divine Persons reciprocally perform. Is a gift that overflows in the creation and manifests itself thoroughly in the Incarnation of The Word and in his redeeming death” (VC 21c).

So this is the first and last, founding reason/meaning of the poverty of Christ, and consequently, that one of His disciples. The Trinitarian mystery and the mystery of salvation are a mystery of “poverty”, namely, of a thorough donation of oneself, for the love to the Other.

In this way, Christ becomes the poor par excellence: no one has seen what He saw and, in consequence, has not renounced as He did. He gives himself thoroughly for love, and freely (Jh 10,17-18); he lives in an attitude of complete disposal to whatever the Father requests from Him, separated of everything and everybody (poverty), beginning with His natural family (celibacy), in favor of the mission received (obedience) (Lk 2,49; Mt 12,49-50). And on the cross he sees the highest moment of this poverty, reacting with the greatest radicalism of the biblical poor: without goods (material poverty), without dignity or recognized rights (political and social poverty), oppressed by the political power (Pilate the occupier) and, what was infinitively more dramatic for a Hebrew, by the religious power (The Sanhedrin, The Sovereign Priest), the political-religious authority recognized by Him…!); even “poor” of the Father, feeling Him now far away, He who had said that , even if everybody had abandoned him, He was not alone, because the Father was with Him (Jh 8,29; 16,32)… And in this situation of poverty, uprooting, and total solitude, reacts with a cry which is, at the same time, filled with distress (because He is human) and with faith in the Father, in spite of everything, the cry of that one who has become completely poor, of that one who has remained without any power and any security except for that far away God:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27,46; Sal 22).

You too! So:

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”  (Lk 23,46; Sal 31,6).

And so he dies (cf. VC 23). It seems a complete failure; and, instead is the beginning of everything. Now the word is transferred to the Father, and the Father will answer back soon: resurrecting Him!

            This total availability to the Father in the cross (Phl 2,5-11) had already brought him during his public life to live close and separated at the same time, to be free of the mission, moved by the love to the Father and the brothers. He does not avoid contact with anybody (Jh 6,37); and, in fact, throughout the Gospel we find around Christ any type of person. At the same time, though, he maintains himself free from goods, relatives, politics, the Law, powerful groups… His external poverty will only be a inevitable consequence, even though not sought in itself: he does not worry about being an ascetic as in the Greek style, what’s more, he will be even accused by some disciples of the Baptist of not being austere enough (Mt 9,14; 11,18-19), even though he lives in a situation of scarcity of goods and human insecurity: without a family of his own (Mt 19,10-12), rejected from the family where he was born and brought up (Mt 12,46-50), expelled by His peasants from Nazareth (Lk 4,16-30), without own goods (Mt 8,20), guest at the house of a disciple, Paul (Lk 4,31-41; Mc 2,1), guest of the friends at Betania (Lk 10,38-42), helped economically by some wealthy women (Lk 8,1-3), buried in a borrowed tomb (Jh 19,28; Mk 16,1; Lk 23,56)… His external poverty, thus, it is not an end in itself (we are not among the dualist Greeks!), but a spontaneous, consistent, free expression of the love to the Father and the brothers to give His life for them (Mk 10,45; Jh 10,117-18; 15,13). His poverty is not, above all, “ a renouncement to”, but “a choice in favor of”, for love, with all the consequences, comprising the eventual death in the cross.    

b.         At this point, which is now the meaning of evangelical poverty in us? It has to be in any way similar to that of Christ. We can reassume the meaning in three statements, each one a consequence of the other:

1)         Firstly, poverty is an internal reality, an attitude and an interior experience (cf. Mt 5,3), fruit and consequence of faith. Concretely, we start at the welcoming of God in Christ, which center is a motive of one’s own life, namely, the supremacy of God over everything and everyone. And, consequently, the total donation to God in Christ as the Only One necessary. In other words – let’s remember the texts quoted before – a life of poverty that:

“… confesses that God is the only richness of man. Experienced by Christ’s example that «though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor» (2Cor 8,9), becomes an expression of the total gift that the three divine Persons reciprocally perform” (VC 21c).

In this way, the CL:

“… imitating his poverty (that one of Christ), confesses him Son who all receives from the Father and, in the love, he returns all (cf. Jh17,7.10)” (VC 16c).,

and shares “the explicit desire of a total conformation to Him” (VC 18c).

            As we said before, the Christological-Trinitarian dimension is the real “Christian” root of poverty. To us, God/Christ is the only really needful good (cf. Sal 15; Lk 10,42; VC 21c). All the rest keeps being valid and “kind”; but it comes, affectively and effectively afterwards, not only the goods, but also the people, and even one’s own life: because every Christian has to place in the primacy of his/her life even martyrdom (cf. LG 42b, VC 86). This is the “heart of the poor” of each disciple, the poverty that is requested to all of us!            

The religious person will experience it in his/her peculiar way, according to the characteristics of his/her vocation; but he/she is actually experiencing an element common to all Christians. His austerity of life, the community share of goods, etc., it is just to proclaim this supremacy of God and this availability to the brothers, which are typical of each Christian life. 

2)         Secondly, evangelical poverty is availability in favor of the Kingdom. It is not the consequence of what has just been said. It is the practical attitude for service; likewise, external poverty will be a consequence of that internal attitude of freedom and availability to God and to the brothers, like Christ. Actually, imitating Him (cf. Phl 2,7), the religious person dispossesses oneself, empties oneself, separates from everything (people: family-celibacy, goods: material poverty and autonomy: obedience) with the objective of remaining open and available to God and the brothers. In effect, the person places oneself (the greatest good one has) at a disposition; he/she gives without reserves, he/she becomes everything and everybody (1Cor 9,19-23). Becomes, thus, a visible representation, in history, of the complete donation of Christ to the Father and the brothers. Poverty, so, as a donation, as charity life, and not as a pleasure of the emptiness, as disregard of someone or something, or as simple asceticism. The asceticism will be of course necessary, but as an essential help to overcome one’s own egoism and favor communion. As Paul used to say:     

“If I give away all I have (material poverty, as many Greek philosophers did), and if I deliver my body to be burned (the terrible death), but have not love, I gain nothing” (1Cor 13,3).

Saint Agustin would say: “Martyres non facit poena, sed causa” ¹³. Christian faith is not a mystery of renouncement or of asceticism, not even of pain; but of love and communion (1Jh 1,3), because God is like this (1Jh 4,8,16), like this He manifested (Jh 3, 16s) and like this He sanctified himself (Rm 5,5).  

            In this way, the life of the religious person is called to become a state of universal and unconditional availability, of service, solidarity, simplicity, overabounding gratuity (cf. VC 104-105), agility, and continuous dis-installation, according to the characteristics of each charisma. He/she becomes a brother/sister particularly solidary, free, simple and available. The “professional” of availability and sharing, “the expert in communion” (cf. RPU 24, RD 5, VC 46a). In fact, he/she puts at the disposal of God and the brothers his/her person (obedience), his/her life (the only one he/she has!), his/her love (celibacy), his/her things (external poverty), his/her prayers, his/her time. To him/her, any type of individualism, of retreat of him/herself, of egoism, of closeness, of denial to the word or the human relationship, of lack of cooperation, of sloth, of comfort, etc., all of them are the lack against evangelical poverty, because it means that he/she does not give, does not share, something that he/she could give! That is why evangelical poverty also involves, obviously!, the economic reality; but comprises much more than the briefcase: the life, all the person!         

            3)         I have already said it, but let’s repeat it: poverty means sharing the goods. Let’s remember that the ideal of the community of Jerusalem, paradigm of Christian poverty, was not the lack of goods, but the share of what there actually was (cf. At 2,42-47; 4,32; 5,16). To the Christian, in fact, goods are not something evil, but something good to be shared, a means to live and express communion.

            In the religious person, this will mean a double type of share and a double type of goods: 1) a share inside the group or the community, among its members, namely, fraternal life (VFC 44e-h) and towards the external, namely, the apostolic mission (VFC 59); 2) and two types of goods: those human and material, and those spiritual. Each one gives what each one can give, welcomes the other as he/she is and is willing to receive. Fraternal life and the specific mission are just manifestations of evangelical poverty.              

            With respect to external poverty, this one becomes secondary and unavoidable, at the same time. Secondary, because the important part is the internal poverty; unavoidable because man is a unique reality and, so, the simplicity of life and the austerity become an unavoidable help to make possible and believable internal poverty. This is why, notwithstanding its condition of being secondary, it is the trial part (history proves it!) of internal and theological poverty. When one is poor, one cannot help considering what one has. Although, with respect to the external and material aspects, it will be necessary to bear in mind:   

1-     the historic moment in which one lives,

2-     the place or society in which one is,

3-     and the charisma and mission that one has to fulfill.

What could be considered austere in one time, place or according to a charisma, could not be it in another moment. Creative faithfulness to one’s own vocational roots (cf. VC 36-37) and the attentive surveillance and critic to the signs of time (cf. VC 87-92), will tell us how is understood and experienced.