Saint Francis: “poverty is the supreme path to salvation”

Source: Berthaumier 1863.

You should know, my beloved brothers, that poverty is the queen of virtues, because it shone forth in the highest degree in the King of kings and in the Queen, His mother. Hold firmly, therefore, my brothers, that poverty is the supreme path to salvation; it is like the nurse of humility and the seed of perfection. Its fruits are many, though little known. It is the hidden treasure of the Gospel field, the treasure for whose acquisition one must sell all things and despise what cannot be sold in order to possess it.

Whoever desires to reach its summit must not only renounce worldly prudence, but in some sense even skill in letters, so that, stripped of such a possession, he may enter under the power of the Lord and offer himself naked into the arms of the crucified God. He does not perfectly renounce the world who keeps, in the secret of his heart, the coin of his own judgment.

Let holy poverty therefore shine forth in all things among you, and especially in the houses you build. Remember this passage from the Gospel: “Foxes have their dens, and the birds of the air their nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” (Matt. 8.) Therefore, build only small houses in the manner of the poor; and even then, you must not dwell in them as if they belonged to you, but as travelers and strangers dwell in the houses of others. The rule of travelers, as you know, is to take shelter beneath another’s roof, to sigh for their homeland, and to continue their journey in peace.

This evangelical poverty is the foundation of our Order. Upon this first base rests the whole structure of our religious life, so that it remains unshaken if the foundation is firm, and collapses from top to bottom if it is overthrown.

The more the brothers depart from poverty, the more the world will depart from them; they will seek, and they will not find. If they embrace poverty closely, my sovereign lady, the world will nourish them, because they have been given to the world to save it. There is an exchange between the world and the brothers. They owe the world good example, and the world, in turn, must provide for their needs. If, betraying their pledged faith, they withdraw good example from the world, the world, by just return, will withdraw its hand from them.