Holy Poverty: The Perfection with which those first Fathers observed it

12 What is poverty 13 Poverty and obedience 14 Solitude and obedience

(12) The Venerable Father Francis of Iesi said, “True poverty consists in loving any no earthly thing, but only the Divine Majesty and in doing His Will perfectly.” Therefore those venerable Fathers said poverty consists much more in the will than in the use of things. That meant that it means nothing to be poor in earthly things before God and yet be rich with ones own will. They gave this example. If when a Friar dies they find three farthings sewn into his habit, everyone would think he died in ownership and he would be refused a church funeral, as if he were damned. Now if that Friar dies owning three farthings, this external poverty of having no earthly things is important enough to send him to hell. And this external poverty is the least of all the kinds poverty. How much more should it be said that one must die condemned if without contrition and confession he dies the owner of self-will, which is the greatest wealth to be found in the world?

(13) As person who is imprisoned or a slave gives everything he has in order to free himself. Therefore this is the vow to which we have freely obliged ourselves: to be poor in ones own will. By our profession we are completely deprived of it. We no can no longer say, “I want” or “I don’t want.” Rather we have completely stripped ourselves of this for the love of God with the obligation to do what others command us. This is that precious jewel that we have given to the Lord God. This is more acceptable to Him in comparison to all the riches of the world. It is no small things for someone to give his own will to the Lord God, an offering which is sufficient in itself. With it nothing else pleases Him. This therefore is that true poverty of spirit that exalted those early Fathers of ours so much, freeing them from all earthly love, from ambition, from the desire to be considered holy and from every physical comfort. All these things impede the spirit very much and often extinguish it completely. They rejoiced so much over submission that the greatest grief that could done them was to give them some office in which they had to be over others, like something which very much hindered the sweetness of contemplation for them. They enjoyed submission as a very great freedom that liberated them from all pre-occupation and from all thought about what they had to do in order to meet their needs. Often when they were talking together they said to one another, “You do not know what the devil put in my mind during prayer: ‘In which place you would like to be?’ I answered him, ‘I would like to be where my Superior puts me.’” Then they added, “Holy obedience frees us from all worry. When the devil says to us, ‘What will you eat?’ The answer to him is, ‘Whatever the cook gives me.’ “What will you wear?’ ‘The habit the Guardian gives me.’ And so with everything.”

(14) They asserted that one could serve God much better and more surely under obedience than in solitude. When on one’s own one has to think about the necessities and about providing the things that one can’t do without for the sustenance of one’s nature. This takes so much time that it leaves little that can be given for holy contemplation. Under holy obedience all that time is gained and it frees one from that anxious care that offends poverty of sprit so much. With this a man may know that he is using time well for the good of his spirit.