Three virtues, he said, were necessary to constitute poverty of spirit:
simplicity, humility, and christian poverty. Simplicity consists in that
singleness of aim which looks only to God, referring to Him alone those
innumerable opportunities which come to us from objects other than Himself.
Humility is that conviction of our own inferiority and destitution which
makes the truly humble man regard himself as always an unprofitable
servant. Christian poverty is of three kinds. First, that which is
affective, but not effective. This can be practised in the midst of wealth,
as in the case of Abraham, David, St. Louis, and many other holy persons,
who, though rich in this world's goods, were ready in a moment to accept
poverty with cheerfulness and thankfulness if it should please God to send
it to them.
Second, effective but not affective poverty, which is a very unhappy
condition. Those who are weighed down by it feel all its distressing
consequences and are miserable because they cannot possess the many things
which they ardently desire.
Third, affective, united with effective poverty, which is recommended in
the Gospels, and which may happen to be our lot, either from birth or from
some reverse of fortune.
If we are reconciled to our condition in life, however humble, and bless
God Who has placed us in it, then we tread in the footsteps of Jesus
Christ, of His holy Mother, and of the Apostles, who all lived a life of
poverty.
Another way of practising this poverty is to follow the counsels of Jesus
Christ, Who bids us _sell all that we have and give it to the poor_,
imitating our divine Master in that poverty which He embraced for us,
that we, through it, might be made rich. And never is this command more
practically and worthily obeyed than when the man who has abandoned all his
worldly goods for the sake of Christ, labours, not only in order to sustain
his own life, but that he may have the wherewithal to give alms.
Thus did the Apostle glory when he said: _For such things as were needful
for me, and them that are with me, these hands have furnished_.[1]
[Footnote 1: Acts xx. 34.]