63 obedience, poverty, chastity pensing this income, the manner contained in the papal decrees10 under the penalties specified there. Without the permission of the Superior, let none keep for himself either money or food or drink, under the penalty of losing active and passive voice. Such permission can be granted only for some good reason and for a short time, for all ought to live from common resources and the common table. However, foreseeing all the harm [that could come from its use], this permission is to be granted chiefly and only to the aged and the sick. No member should receive anything from anybody without the permission of the Superiors, whether it be from a house member or an outsider; nor should he give anything to anyone. Before profession, he should dispose of his inheritance and his goods in the world, if he had any. If he was hindered by something, then he should settle his affairs as quickly as possible after profession, since our Lord openly stated: “whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Lk l4:33). The Superiors will provide the members, as much as they will be able in the Lord, sufficiently in all things according to our norms, but not superfluously however. Otherwise, on account of more rigorous want, the members would be found slothful in their service of God. It is fitting for each one to be mindful that he is rather the imitator of the Heavenly King in need, who, it is said, had neither His own home (cf. Mt 8:20; Lk 9:58) nor when He was thirsty was ashamed to have asked for water (cf. Jn 4:7). So you, once you find yourself in a situation of utmost poverty11, rejoice exceedingly, because then you can be the true disciples and followers of Christ the Lord. 10 Clement VIII, Nullus omnino, 1599. 11 As a Piarist, Fr. Stanislaus was very much attached to the legal and ascetical concept of “utmost poverty” that he had learned in the novitiate. Due to the reform of the Piarists in 1656, he was already not able to profess it. (Later he was evidently trying to preserve or bring back at least some of its elements, by writing the Apology for the Utmost Poverty.) We do not have any evidence that in his own Institute he ever tried to introduce the “utmost poverty — either in that most strict, of the Capuchins; or in that less strict of the Piarist since 1622 — in the legal sense. Nevertheless, he cherished utmost poverty as an actual experience in religious life and insisted on the need of being satisfied with the true necessities of life, and with the utmost simplicity of life (cf. for example, below, Ch. 5. n.9,
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