Poverty of Spirit

 

Spiritual Reading selected by Deacon Steve from
Metz, Johannes B., “Poverty of Spirit”, Paulist Press, New York, 1968, p. 25-26

“God has come to us in grace. Our Lord has endowed us with God’s life, and made our life God’s. In doing this the Lord did not mitigate or eliminate our innate poverty; God actually intensified it and outdid it. God’s grace does not cause estrangement and excess as sin does. It reveals the full depths of our destiny (resulting from God’s salvific initiative in history), which we could not have imagined by ourselves.

A person with grace is a person who has been emptied, who stands impoverished before God, who has nothing of which they can boast…Grace does not erase our poverty; it transforms it totally, allowing it to share in the poverty of Jesus’ own immolated heart.

This poverty, then, is not just another virtue – one among many. It is a necessary ingredient in any authentic Christian attitude toward life. Without it there can be no Christianity and no imitation of Christ. It is no accident that “poverty of spirit” is the first of the beatitudes. What is the sorrow of those who mourn, the suffering of the persecuted, the self-forgetfulness of the merciful, or the humility of the peacemakers- what are these if not variations of spiritual poverty? This spirit is the mother of the threefold mystery of faith, hope and charity. It is the doorway through which people must pass to become authentic human beings.

Only through poverty of spirit do people draw near to God; only through it does God draw near to people. Poverty of spirit is the meeting point of heaven and earth, the mysterious place where God and humanity encounter each other, the point where infinite mystery meets concrete existence.”

Metz, Johannes B., “Poverty of Spirit”, Paulist Press, New York, 1968, p. 25-26

Transforming a Social Narrative By Listening

Archbishop Emeritus Sylvain Lavoie OMI

Someone once said, “Being listened to is so close to being loved, most people can’t tell the difference.”

The outrage across the nation and the church around the issue of Indian Residential Schools and unmarked graves, has become a heavy social narrative that has in some ways, taken on a life of its own beyond anyone’s power to manage. This very painful situation leaves many of us wondering what we can do, how can we best respond to the anger, lashing out, blaming, and sometimes acts of violence?

As simple as it may seem, I believe listening from the heart to the voices of those hurting the most, until we “get it,” is the best response.

READ MORE

Do Vincentians care about Social Justice?

 A brief introduction to the Vincentian perspective on social justice by looking at what the Rule and Statutes has to say.