"Poverty
is born from the discovery that I am Another's: I exist because I am loved in
an individual way by Another.... I am the work of Another, nothing is mine,
because everything is given to me by HIM."
"Poverty cannot exist unless it is fed by
hope, that is to say, by the certainty that we have been given what really
counts in life and that no one can take that away from us.... Poverty is
freedom from things, and awareness that it is God who fulfills our
desires."
“Poverty, understood as the
use of things according to their true purpose, is a virtue for building up, a
virtue animated by the certainty that God’s promises are being fulfilled.
Unless you are certain of having already received everything, in fact, you
cannot have the freedom to use what you hold in your hands according to its
ultimate purpose. You will be out for your own safety, you will tighten your
grip on things, and so you will set the stage for your own destruction.”
“To be poor, then, is to use
each thing according to its ultimate end, placing the expectation of one’s
good, not in the possession of this or that thing, but in the realization of
the Kingdom of God. When we do that, we use, appreciate, and love each thing
without turning it into an idol. When they become idols, persons and things
cease to be ours: they are like objects that irreparably break to pieces in our
hands. In a correct relationship with things and with other people, we do not
refuse them the esteem that is their due – for example, you do not deny the
value of a person if you are friends with him. At the same time, however, one
does not expect from them the fulfillment of one’s own life. It is in the
Kingdom of God that things and persons find their proper place….”
“Through this stripping,
however, an endless joy comes to birth. For when we live poverty, we discover
that we are lacking nothing, since everything is given to us….”
“We are already in the
definitive hour, the hour in which, after the Incarnation, Death, and
Resurrection of Jesus, we human beings possess everything, but in a new way.”
Source: Bishop Massimo Camisasca, Magnificat from his book, The Challenge of Fatherhood:
