Sounds like something only a lunatic would do, right?
Then I guess I qualify. Ever since my time with the Missionaries of Charity, poverty, or growing in poverty has been a component of my daily prayer. First, in reflection of the Nativity, and the poverty Christ undertook to become like us.
"No one, whether shepherd or wise man, can approach God here below except by kneeling before the manger at Bethlehem and adoring him hidden in the weakness of a new-born child." (CCC 563)
Second, in light of my own poverty. Once you've moved past material poverty, which in reality I still have many things, mostly useful things, you move on to spiritual poverty, social poverty, and sometimes intellectual poverty. Sounds like it could be painful, and in many ways it is. At the same time, there is so much beauty in this kind of poverty. One of the main lessons I'm still learning that I understand God to be teaching me is to find my worth in being a beloved daughter of God. Not in what I do with my day, who I spend time with, or how I'm contribute to the work of the Church.
I've been putting off writing a "Christmas letter" with the traditional updates of what's been going on in my life. Mostly I've been hoping to be able to include what my new place of employment will be. However, it seems that God is continuing to humble me. The humiliation of telling people you are job searching or unemployed continues. As it does, he is increasing my receptivity, or my willingness to accept whatever it is he is preparing for me or preparing me for. There have been mountains and valleys especially throughout the past two months. God has given me just enough affirmation or direction to make it through the next few days or the next week. In the words of Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman:
"Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me."
Third, in understanding that NOTHING I do can hinder or change His love for me. I am little and pray, like St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, pray to love my littleness. I am nothing without Him. 1 John 4:19 states, "We love because he first loved us." He love us. Oh, how He love us. I need not have words, prayers, thoughts, or books when I go to visit Him in the Blessed Sacrament. However, this is often times my attitude towards prayer, towards my relationship with God. Too often, I do all the talking. Poverty of me. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta writes in No Greater Love,
"We too are called to withdraw at certain intervals into deeper silence and aloneness with God, together as a community as well as personally. To be alone with Him, not with our books, thoughts, and memories but completely stripped of everything, to dwell lovingly in His presence - silent, empty, expectant, and motionless."
Thus He is growing my poverty in prayer as well. Should I stop praying for poverty? No, that's like saying I should stop praying for trust, or patience or humility, or for the grace to respond to grace. As I continue to pray for poverty, there is no doubt that God will provide me with the grace, strength and opportunities for poverty. St. Francis of Assisi says, "The opposite of love is possession." Thus in my poverty, I am growing in love. "God is love." (1 John 4:8,16)
