The Antipodes: Holy Poverty And Economic Poverty

Holy poverty and economic poverty are in economic terms the same poverty but they are situated as far apart from each other as the mind can imagine.

Holy poverty is by choice.  The best example is San Francesco d'Assisi.  He was the decadent son of a wealthy merchant who chose to become poor and lived on alms.  He became a saint by following the footsteps of Christ.  While leading his life of holy poverty, he was granted the ability to perform miracles and was given the stigmata. [1]

By contrast, economic poverty is a result of circumstance either of birth or of societal ills.  I have not yet come across the efficient allocation of poverty where the economically poor are truly holy.  To put it bluntly and perhaps cruelly, it would be simplest, and most efficient, for the poor to choose to stay poor and live a saintly life of holy poverty.  That is not the case, however.

The one exception I know is Sainte Bernadette Soubirous who lived in abject poverty with her parents and siblings, and whose nature was kind and courteous. [2]  She would become the saint who would give the world the miraculous healing water of Lourdes after encountering the Blessed Virgin Mary and doing exactly as She instructed.  The Lord has not given us too many saints like Bernadette.

If the poor in this world would choose to live in holy poverty like San Francesco d'Assisi or without envy like Sainte Bernadette Soubirous, there may not be another war.  Those who are poor have not made such choices, but if they did choose to follow Christ, they could do it right away without having to sell any of their possessions (they have none). [3]

The poor are not to blame.  As sinners, the poor, like everyone other sinner, are vulnerable to Satan's temptation.  Before the poor, Satan has placed the fruit of envy and before the wealthy, the fruit of greed.  Just like our first parents, Adam and Eve, we have eaten what we do not have to.

Most of us sinners, whether wealthy or poor, have chosen not to live in holy poverty and follow Christ like San Francesco d'Assisi.  We have, under the supervision and with the support of Satan, created a divide that can never be closed, a scale of justice that will never be in balance. [4]

In dealing with inequality, all Satan wants us to do, including the priests and those in charge of the Vatican, is to be hypocrites, to pay lip service to social justice, like writing a catechism on the topic [5], playing politics with the poor by trading false promises for power or blogging about poverty online, pointing our fingers at every other secular entity or government or every other religious group except ourselves.

In the final analysis, we who have not chosen the path of Christ are all to a certain extent, greater or smaller, living in unholy poverty (spiritual, economic or both) that is antipodal to Holy poverty.




[1] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06221a.htm
[2] http://www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/bernadette-soubirious.html
[3] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A21&version=NIV; http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+18%3A22; and http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+10%3A21&version=ESV
[4] "We" in the sentence include the rich and powerful whose greed makes them want to exploit sadistically the earth's resources and those inferior to them as well as the powerless paupers whose refusal to be productive (referring to charitable or for-profit productivity and not procreative productivity--that they excel in with abandon) makes them envious, bitter, angry and vengeful.  Without prayer, we would swirl deeper and deeper into the vortex of depravity, the dark hole of hopelessness that Satan designed to trap people's souls during life so they can be Hell-bound after death.
[5] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c2a3.htm