Lest You Remain

emotionally or are attached to it, may harm you. For many people, it is a source of pride to have a lot of possessions but you, bound by the vow of poverty, should restrain and restrict your will from possessing even necessary things, such as clothes. As for the things you yourself recognize as irreconcilable with the virtue of poverty, consider them as poisonous snakes, which will soon bring to ruin both you and the Congregation. Immediately, get rid of them and remove them from your cell, so that a precious pearl of Evangelical poverty would not lose its value or dim its luster. 2. Judge for yourself whether you are attached to any thing in a particular way, which you could not part with, or, if you were to give it away, you would do it with regret and it would disturb your inner peace. That would be much more seri- ous and negative than possessing the entire world without any emotional attach- ment to it. Check also whether or not you have provided an opportunity for some- one else to violate or disregard poverty either by letting him keep something or by bringing him a thing to make him ask for permission to keep it, or even by bring- ing to the convent or the religious house even small things which are against the spirit of holy poverty. Further, have you hidden anything you could appropriately possess from the superior? Or maybe you have not given things you received as gifts from others for the common use or by your insistence, you have compelled the superior to agree on your exclusive use of them? Realize that just as in nakedness, you have risen from dirt, in nakedness you shall return there. For you, Christ, hav- ing left heaven, was born naked in a stable, so that you would imitate Him in this bareness. Possessing nothing, you will have everything, as the saying goes: “A naked monk or religious is a master of the entire world.” 3. You should congratulate yourself that God called you to this most blessed state and for taking the most precious vow, because it provides you with the high- est peace, calmness and joy. You know the opposite situation: how much suffering is endured by those who possess great riches, which they acquired with the utmost strain. They guard what they have gained with great care, fear and watchfulness. And if it happens that they lose their possessions, they suffer enormously, some- times they even try to take their lives. So what results from this accumulation of treasures, when even with all of them, they cannot have God as the Highest Good? No one can simultaneously serve God and money (cf. Mt 6:24, Luke 16:13) and no one may follow Jesus and unite with Him when he does not go to sell everything (cf. Mt 19:21). Moreover, it is difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 19:24). Otherwise, the same Gospel of truth says that the poor will inherit eter- nal goods: “Blest are the poor in spirit: the reign of God is theirs” (Mt 5:3). Program of Vigils 43