Still more on poverty.

Mar 25, 2013

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Father Dwight Longenecker gives us some more to think about concerning Franciscan-style intentional poverty — contrasted with Benedictine-style “communal living.”

A Benedictine monk takes three vows: obedience, stability, and conversion of life. He doesn’t take a vow of poverty. However, the Rule of St Benedict does forbid private ownership of any kind. A Benedictine monk does not take a vow of poverty, but he lives under a rule of no personal possessions. The monastery owns stuff. In fact, a monastery could be very wealthy. However, it is all owned in common, and each individual monk makes use of what is owned in common, but does not own it himself.

This is a radical attempt at communal living which commands personal poverty, but does not elevate being impoverished as if it were some sort of virtue simply to be poor.

St Francis, on the other hands, wanted to marry “Lady Poverty” and claimed that it was indeed a virtue to be poor. He was probably reacting to the Benedictine monks of the day who may not have technically owned anything individually, but who did live very well in their plush monasteries. The problem with Francis’ embrace of literal poverty is the reason he was suspected of heresy–if poverty is a virtue for its own sake, then by implication private ownership is evil and by further implication the heresy of Manicheanism is there–the belief that the material world is somehow tainted or evil. Francis corrected this by embracing the goodness of all things which could be best enjoyed by not owning them or grabbing them for oneself. His poverty was therefore an affirmation of all things rather than a rejection.

While the Benedictine approach does not embrace poverty as a virtue, it does hold hands with the Franciscan approach in it’s rejection of private and personal ownership. Both ways call for a radical rejection of private ownership in order to develop within the person a proper Christian detachment.

…The Christian is called to be detached from material things in order to be properly attached to all things. The poet Thomas Traherne says, “Can a man be just unless he loves all things according to their worth.” Thus a Christian should be detached from all his belongings so that he can love them–and all things–according to their true worth.

More thoughts applying things like this to spiritual poverty?

And by the way, does this have anything to do with being “poor in spirit?”

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Comments

7 responses to “Still more on poverty.”

Melanie B

March 25, 2013

To be poor in spirit. Yes, I keep coming back to that beatitude. Perhaps we might also look to the Litany of Humility?
I keep coming back to this too: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/duffy/2013/03/kinds-of-sinners/#comments
I think there’s something there to pull out about spiritual poverty and reaching out to those around us, but you’ll have to do your own pulling.

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Owen

March 26, 2013

In the sense that literal poverty, that is willingly chosen literal poverty can be a path to being poor in spirit as in the case of Jesus words to the Rich Young Ruler –mentioned on my post of yesterday on this topic– I would say, yes there is a definite connect in what Fr. Longenecker notes.
Melanie, that Litany is one I have been praying now, almost daily for months. I only wish I had by now fully attained the spirit of poverty in it.

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MrsDarwin

March 26, 2013

I know others have made this point, but family life is very Benedictine: we have scheduled activities in common, and almost everything is owned communally — indeed, it’s very difficult to have personal property, as every parent has lamented at one point. Also, the emphasis on stability seems so vitally important for children: not always the stability of place, but emotional and spiritual stability fostered by the parents.
As I’ve been reading your series about spiritual poverty, I keep thinking that though we can embrace literal poverty ourselves, spiritual poverty (of the sort suffered by John of the Cross or Mother Teresa; as distinct from spiritual bankruptcy) is often something sent by God for the purification of the soul. It seems a bit dangerous to go searching for spiritual poverty, because we aren’t always strong enough to know how much deprivation our souls can endure.
But then, “poor in spirit” has different connotations to me than “spiritual poverty” — the latter sounds like a dangerously impoverished, stunted spiritual state; the former like a humble, contented one.

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Owen

March 26, 2013

Giving the emphasis and distinction of meaning as you do yours is a solid observation MrsDarwin.

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Melanie B

March 31, 2013

Thinking more about “spiritual poverty”. This weekend it struck me that a kind of spiritual poverty open to parents in a specific way is going to Mass with small children. I often see parents complaining about being to distracted to pay attention, not getting much from Mass or using that as an excuse to leave the kids at home, to put them in the nursery, or to split shifts. Now all those things are sometime necessary and I don’t want to condemn those who avail themselves of help so they can get to Mass on their own sometimes. But it seems to me there is a certain spiritual poverty to going to Mass and not fretting about the distractions of the little ones. Go knowing you will probably be distracted and not feel very refreshed, not very comforted. And accepting that as the way it is, offering it up, doing it because you think there is value to just being at Mass even if you spend it in the vestibule with a sobbing or screaming kid, even if you miss communion.
What do you think is that a sort of spiritual poverty such as you were thinking of?

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bearing

April 1, 2013

Yeah, I think so. What I’m trying to do is explore whether analogies can be drawn here. And I think they can. So, for instance, where Father Longenecker says,
“…The Christian is called to be detached from material things in order to be properly attached to all things…”
…one thing we know we do have to be somewhat detached from are spiritual consolations of all kinds. This is something that we’re still being taught (Bl. “Mother” Teresa of Calcutta’s writings were a good recent example of this — of persistence in the face of spiritual dryness), because we can’t make ourselves “feel” a certain way, because feelings of spiritual certainty, or of joy or contrition or whatever, are all gifts.
So we have to be detached from consolations — (1) can’t let ourselves get too discouraged when we don’t have them, (2) can’t demand them or feel that we “deserve” them (because we deserve NOTHING) or that we “ought” to get them, or decide that God isn’t really there because if He would we would “feel” him, etc.
And even when we DO have consolations we have to distance ourselves from them, not think that we got them because we were so wonderful or because we did all the right things. Gifts. GIFTS. Having lots of spiritual consolations can be a temptation to pride just as can having lots of material good things.
All this being said, a peaceful hour at Mass by yourself or with all your children calm and/or sleeping — when those things happen they are also GIFTS… We always have to be detached from the idea of Mass as a place where nothing distracting can ever happen, because then we are not properly attached to the essential qualities of the Mass.

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Melanie B

April 2, 2013

Yes. As I suspected, you articulated the connections much better than I could.

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