2) The anthropological and socio-economic concept of poverty has been broaden; and not everything is negative.

We can distinguish between a negative meaning or content and a positive one about poverty with respect to human reality. Misery, instead, has always and only a negative meaning, and it is always unworthy of man. Poverty, instead, can in fact help man live some human values.

a. In our society, when it is talked about poverty, we tend to think automatically in something negative: the lack of goods, particularly the economic ones; and, in general, the relationship of man with material things that are external to him.

            To tell the truth, the present human reality of poverty is much wider and articulated. In effect, poverty – as we will now see – has also its positive features, from the human viewpoint. And, on the other hand, with respect to the negative features, it comprises much more than simply the socio-economic aspect.       

            Economic poverty, actually, or lack of material goods, is an external aspect, though important to man, and also decisive for his biophysical survival. This is a primary poverty, a basic one. There is poverty, even when there are goods, but unfairly distributed; for instance, in a wealthy society there can be so many poor ⁵.

            We could thus talk about “relative” economic poverty, not when goods are not enough to live a life humanly honorable, but when the economic and cultural possibilities could allow all citizens a higher level, if it were not hindered by corruption or bad administration. It would be enough to think, e.g. that some “poor people” in some industrialized countries would be considered almost as “the wealthy” in the Third World, and some “wealthy” characters of other times today would be considered poor: they did not have electrical power, or drinkable water at home, not even fridges, radio, television, computer, or holidays abroad (perhaps they did not even know that it existed…!) they did not have the variety of food that we have today, or the clothes, air conditioners or heating systems, not even trains, cars, airplanes, etc., most of them were even illiterate. So, people sometimes talk about poverty or restrictions simply when they do not achieve to acquire goods more or less fictitious, or the last devices in the market, encouraged by the consumption-oriented advertising. Modern capitalism, actually, needs people who consume in a quiet, continuous, standardized and mass way, who have tastes that can be typified and changed. Acquisition – possession – consumption – fast elimination – new consumption … are the phases and chains of the closed circle created by prevailing consumption ⁶.

            But, there are other types of human poverty not less profound. For example, the lack of decision power (on one’s own life, family, society…); unemployment (lack of job) because not only it prevents someone from acquiring goods, but also goes against dignity and the rights of the person: earn one’s own bread; it is something humiliating, unworthy. It is the poverty of the physically sick person, the handicapped, the old person: this person lacks the good of health; the drug addicts, people with Aids…; the poverty of the uncultured or illiterate: this person lacks the good of culture; those who do not have a home or a family or have to emigrate due to economic or political reasons, particularly the clandestine emigrate, the persecuted one, the nomad, the beggar. Also, the poverty of that one who does not have anybody to love or is not loved by anybody; of that one who feels lonely without being able to satisfy the need of belonging to a group, the need of being recognized in the own unmistakable individual, cultural and social identity (cf. ChL 28); the need of individual and collective safety, the need of being taken into account, loved as a person, and thus see one’s own existence “justified”. And in general, the poverty of that one who feels abandoned, forgotten, rejected, hated, looked upon with mistrust, indifference or disdain; of that one who feels exploited, used as a tool, manipulated, left aside, plagiarized, unable to decide or think on his own, dependent, impotent, scared, overwhelmed by the structures or by the power person on duty, of that one who feels poor of quality and personal human resources; of that one who feels a victim of one’s own limits, of one’s own mean personality, of one’s own psychological fragility, of one’s own incoherence and sins or of the ones from others, of that one who does not see a sense to one’s life or a way out to one’s problems, one’s grieves ⁷ . The poverty even of “the opulent poor”, namely of those who are rich of things, but poor in values, whose life drowns in a hectic work, which they are unable to stop; a life full of things, but empty of spirit, of love, even of health…⁸  The “new poverties” are so many! (cf. VC 63b).       

            Negative poverty is consequently quite a complex and broad reality, which from any viewpoint we are all victims.            

b.         But, we were saying that human poverty can also be a source of values, the space in which certain human virtues match. 

With reference to, in the first place, mainly, the relationship of man with things and with other people, poverty means helping man to keep his role and importance in the creation, without becoming a slave (dependent) of nothing or of nobody, in a way not according to his dignity. 

Thus happens, for instance, when man is free in front of things, does not get stuck to them, does not let himself drag into the anxiety of possessing things or into the desire of dominating people; when he uses the goods or carries out his responsibilities, but keeps himself free and lets or makes the others free. When prevents himself from being dragged by ambition, the greed of possession, the exploitation, the lavishness… When he knows to do without futile things, fictitious goods, needs artificially created (a consequence of the endless and senseless consumption), either to spare his own freedom in front of things, or in front of that one who would like to exploit him. When he understands that it is more important to be than to have. Poverty as liberation of being: 1) free of the “I”: auto-possession, 2) free of things: domain, 3) free to serve the others, 4) free to open and welcome God. Summing up, poverty as freedom and liberation.    

Poor in a positive sense is that one who, conscious of one’s own limits, opens oneself to the others to receive from them with simplicity and humbleness, and is able to share with them, to give oneself, whatever one has to offer, convinced that the relationship among people is the greatest good, and the other is more valuable than things. When one feels and recognizes oneself in need of the others and, at the same time, able to give something, to be enriched and to enrich, to receive with gratitude and to give with generosity: knows to be at the same time hunger and bread ⁹. Poor, so, not in the sense of that one who does not have, but of that one who “in one’s own humanity becomes a good dispenser” (RD 5c). Poverty as solidarity, sharing, communion; not as privation, but as oblation¹⁰. In this way, “a poor heart” becomes unavoidably a “fraternal heart”. Communicates, so, not only the material goods, being a few or a lot, but also and above all, oneself, one’s own person (the greatest good that one has, not the briefcase), one’s own time (which means the only life one has!) one’s own qualities and capacities, one’s own humanity, one’s own love. And so, full and free to be able to give all what humanly and spiritually has, seeing in this giving oneself not a loss, an impoverishment, if not an endless source of human enrichment: when giving from one’s own poverty, one receives! (as it used to say Saint Francis of Assisi). One realizes that is exactly the egoism, closing into oneself, the most tragic process of human impoverishment, because locks the person in the shell of one’s own limits, prevents oneself from receiving and from growing up; whereas when sharing and loving people and things finds the inexhaustible source of one’s own plenitude and human happiness. Consequently, poverty as love, humanization, fraternity, solidarity.

Poverty means, so, to accept oneself, to accept the others and the reality as they are, with the possibilities and limits of each one and of each thing. To accept, which not means a passive resignation, but a “yes” to life, to people (to begin by oneself), to the whole creation. But, it is also a departure point because afterwards, by means of one’s own donation, sharing and love, the person seeks to bring oneself, the others and the created reality to an always greater plenitude. So, poverty as simplicity of life, openness, welcoming, impulse, promotion, life.

Thus understood, poverty appears as a human virtue among the main ones. It means a liberation of the concupiscence and the greed of possession, of egoism and of power, of exploitation, of narcissism and of the usage of the others or of the created; it means knowledge of oneself in front of things: humanization. Simplicity and even certain austerity of life are a help so that man can lie fully himself, human, honorable, lord of creation, not the one who ruins it; free, nor slave, neither destructor; lover, not exploiter.

Poverty that brings to gratuity, to give oneself and share overcoming the continuous temptation of profiting, of the egotistical calculus, of the exploitation and manipulation of the others, of oneself or of things. What’s more, by finding one’s own happiness when communicating oneself, by giving a hand, by loving. A virtue that we often find among the people who are economically weak: those people share willingly, spontaneously, what they have, among themselves and with their guests; what’s more they feel happy and honored of being able to share; not to accept their spontaneous and sincere generosity is considered by them as offensive! The words attributed to Jesus: `It is more blessed to give than to receive' (At 20, 35) correspond to human nature, before even being a revelation of something supernatural.  

Summing up, poverty becomes something positive when is a fruit and a manifestation of the love of man to other man (included himself) and to the creation as a whole. This is the human basis of what we will afterwards say. Once again, grace supposes nature even though it exceeds and perfections it, as Saint Thomas used to say. Human and Christian poverty are not the same; but that one human is the adequate basis – the premise – on which afterwards the supernatural gift is introduced.