Poverty 7 From the writings of Don Orione

From the writings of Don Orione

One of the principal points. One of the principal points of our rule and our religious life is holy poverty. Poverty in any case is the first point of the evangelical counsels given to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Poverty, chastity, obedience.

More than one wise director has told us that poverty is the shortest and safest way to reach blessed Heaven.

God, not finding poverty in Heaven, as Heaven is the infinite abundance and riches of all kinds, came down to seek and find it on this earth. And Jesus began with it Himself: "Coepit facere et docere." He Himself began to practise it, to give example and then to teach. But first of all He began to practise it, because example is the most effective of words. "Verba movent, exempla trahunt. Words move and examples attract." It was said of Jesus: "Coepit facere et docere." He practised it first, and then taught.

Before saying on the mountain: "Blessed are the poor," He wanted to be born poor in a cave. He lived all of His life in poverty. It was a life that was wholly of poverty, great poverty, and work, work, together with poverty. In His three years of public life and evangelisation, we read that He had nowhere to lay His head. The birds have their nests and the foxes their holes, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. He died in absolute poverty, on a cross, nearly naked and even in death He was placed in a tomb that was not His own.

And to those who asked Him what they should do in order to reach perfection He said: "Go and sell what you possess, give it to the poor and follow Me." He thus required the stripping of all the possessions they had. That is why St. Peter said to Him one day: "Reliquimus omnia et secuti sumus Te." We have left everything, the whole house, the boat, the family, everything, even the people most dear to us - the stripping involves even natural affections - everything...!

Now it is this poverty that you and I must live and practise. We must truly practise and practise it and truly live it. Let it not be enough for us just to profess it with vows. We must truly live it, detaching ourselves even from what may be necessary and not be content by just professing it with a vow. The times in the Christian era when the Lord had greater triumph, when the glory of God shone more brightly and the Gospel was more widely preached, were those periods when priests were poorer, when the religious orders were really poor.

St. Francis of Assisi, the poor man of Assisi, did so much good. You could say that he changed the face of the earth! It was he, poor and covered with rags, who was seen by the great Innocent III, it was he who was seen to be holding up Mother Church: St. John Lateran's, representing the holy Church of God.

The previous day the Pope had sent him away as a common beggar: that night he saw the same common beggar, the poor man, holding up the Church, keeping it from falling.

St. Ignatius of Loyola began to strip himself of his sumptuous clothes, his knightly garments - he was Spanish - and put on the clothes of a beggar. In his rule he says: poverty must be the solid wall of defence of the spirit of the Company of Jesus.

St. Thomas Aquinas, speaking of poverty, says that where poverty is nurtured the spirit of Jesus Christ flourishes. That is where God is heard. Wherever poverty is abandoned and despised, dissoluteness and the spirit of the world enter in, even into the most renowned of communities and orders.

And you know also what Dante says about a certain illustrious order, precisely because it had abandoned the spirit of poverty. And I will tell you something else: if Switzerland is Protestant, I think that I am not mistaken in saying that this is due in part to the opulence and riches of certain monks. Down in the valley, in the city, Zwingli was working and preaching and looking after the sick. The monks passed by up above and banquetted in magnificent surroundings. In this way error crept in, even to the point of wrenching the faith from the heart of the people, because the people saw these noble monks in all their riches. All the orders and religious congregations started to disintegrate when they abandoned the spirit of poverty.

This is why I have shuddered many times, thinking of some of our houses, fearing that they are not living the spirit of poverty of the Sons of Divine Providence there any longer. And I have taken measures recently, revising my will, recently, to prevent the laxity that can still come out of certain of our colleges that we still have, unfortunately.

Let us look at Our Lord: if we want to live the kind of life that Jesus Christ lived, we must remember that one of the first things is to live the poverty of Jesus Christ. We have to detach the heart from possessions and from everything that can weaken our spirit. As long as the Congregation loves poverty and lives it, the Congregation will prosper and be blessed by the Lord. When our little Congregation stops being poor it will no longer be carrying out the mission entrusted to it by God. In America - I speak of America because I want to refer to a country that is far away - in America I have seen Benedictine communities that were flourishing because they were living the spirit of poverty. This spirit is also the spirit of humility because where there is humility there is also poverty and a life of purity and obedience.

I have seen other Congregations become rich! If the founders of those Congregations were to lift their head from the grave, who knows what they would say. They certainly would not recognise them as sons. Therefore, my dear people, let us seek to feed the spirit of poverty and humility in ourselves...

Just as St. Francis chose poverty as his lady and spouse, so we must also live the spirit of poverty. It would be a harsh contradiction to call ourselves sons of Divine Providence, that is, sons of faith and of poverty, and then to look for clothes, with our hearts attached to the world, and then after having left the higher things, family, possessions, house, to cling to what is lower and to lose ourselves in things of little value.

(from a speech on 19.2.1940 Word XII. 122)



Oath of poverty.

All religious must then love poverty as a solid wall of the Congregation, and as far as possible, with the help of Divine grace, they must observe it perfectly even in illness and in death. The enemy of human nature, in trying to knock down this bulwark and refuge, erected by the counsel of Our Lord and God against him and other enemies of perfection, usually tries every means to undermine, through pronouncements and innovations contrary to their original spirit, the wise precepts laid down by the founding fathers. We therefore, poor Sons of Divine Providence, called at first by the infinite mercy of the Lord to this Little Congregation, which is His, wishing as far as we are able, even in this, to provide for the needs of the Congregation, establish that every member of the same, in an act that is put on record, must swear, before the Superior General, or whoever is acting in his place and those who are with him, out loud and in writing, and profess, in the presence of our Lord and Creator and of the Most Blessed Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, our Mother and Foundress, that he will never give assent to a relaxation of anything the rule has established on poverty, nor will he procure it for any reason or in any way, either by himself or by means of the Chapter of the Congregation.

(Const. 1912. XXV L. I. 557)



Poverty and suffering
My dear sons, I am not afraid of the sufferings and trials that Divine Mercy will be pleased to send us. What I do fear is the lack of spirit which is showing at present in some of our brothers.

I see that poverty is not loved, when it is through a miracle of Divine Providence that everyone has enough bread and soup at table; yet even among those who have more, through the goodness of the Lord, there are those who are never content, because they do not foster the spirit of mortification and do not consider themselves as being in Houses of Providence and in religious poverty.

You my sons know well the deficiencies of every House.

There is less love for obedience and more thought of advancement and of receiving Orders quickly than of denying themselves; charity is loved less, there are mumblings and grumblings about this and that.

I know that there is someone who wanders about as he pleases, and that some are for ever coming and going, drinking in the cafés and doing anything but fostering the spiritual life. They are doing everything and getting involved with everything except that of seriously taking stock of themselves, trying to be better and giving themselves to the true love of the Lord: now this is wrong.

I beg you, let me hear no more of such things.

I beg you, let us remain united with God. Let us not displease Him, because we have nothing for ourselves but God; but if someone continues like this God will abandon him and the Congregation itself will not be blessed by the Lord, and I am fearful for us if we do not mend our ways.

Everyone should examine himself and seek to improve. Anyone who is not happy in the Congregation and in the observance of community life should leave with God's blessing. I am very happy about those brothers who have left; infected sheep infect the others.

It is of little importance that few of us remain; God does not want us to be many but rather that we should be holy and good.

I must repeat: the pains will perhaps be great: let no-one be the cause of them. Pray, watch yourselves and wait with humility and a firm and strong will and be saintly.

We need prayers, and only Our Lady can help us, because even prayers will not be of much use if we do not remove our faults and the spirit of frivolity, and the spirit of frivolity, and the spirit of frivolity (sic) and embrace mortification, obedience and charity for the love of Jesus Crucified.

I myself feel that I shall soon be going away. It is up to you my sons to keep the Congregation going and to prevent it from losing the spirit of a life that is humble, poor, penitent and burning with love and sacrifice; you must keep it alive and prospering in the glory of God and the Holy Church.

If we behave well God will always help us, you may be sure of that; the poorer, more despised, more afflicted and persecuted we are, the greater good we will do and the greater will be the reward that Jesus Christ will give us in Heaven.

(from a letter of 6.1.1908 Letters I. 57)



Poverty is the strong wall of the Congregation. Poverty decides whether a congregation flourishes or becomes lax. When congregations started to become rich they lost their spirit and broke up! If this Congregation should ever become rich we will write FINIS. Lack of poverty is a sign of the end, the final curtain, of the Congregation.

(from a speech of January 1936 in Argentina Word VI. 256)