examination of the heart 498 Therefore, get rid of them immediately and remove from your cell, lest the most precious pearl of evangelical poverty lose its value and its brilliance fade. 2. Consider whether you had a particular attachment to a certain thing that you cannot leave or, should you have to let it go, you would only do so with sadness and upset spirit? This, indeed, is graver and much worse than possessing the whole world without being attached to it. Also examine yourself, whether you were the cause of someone else’s violating or spurning the vow of poverty by letting him keep something contrary to it, or by arranging for its lawful possessory, or by bringing to the Order or to the house even trifling things discordant with sacred poverty. Next, see if you have not concealed from your Superior some things that you could certainly lawfully possess; or, if you did not turn over for the common use the things which were offered to you by other people, while trying to prevail upon the Superior with annoyance and bitterness so that you yourself could use them. Think, however, that as you came naked out of the earth, you shall also return naked to the earth. For you, having left Heaven, Christ was born naked in the stable so that you may imitate Him in this nakedness and that, having nothing, you may have all; according to this saying: “A destitute monk or a religious is the lord of the whole world.” 3. You should especially rejoice that God has summoned you to the most fortunate state of poverty and its most excellent [f.164v] vow, since it obtains for you the highest peace, serenity, and joy. You know, on the contrary, that the possessors of many treasures, accumulated at the cost of great effort, are tormented; they guard these possessions with excessive care, dread, and vigilance; and should they lose them, they would become greatly distressed and commit suicide sometimes. Why? Because regardless of all their wealth they cannot possess God, the Highest Good. Because nobody can serve God and mammon (cf. Mt 6:24); and nobody can follow Jesus and attain Jesus, unless he goes and sells everything (cf. Mt 19:21).
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