Poverty January 9
Those who owned something in the world should be cheerful in wanting to share it in common once they have entered the monastery (Rule of St. Augustine, 5).
The dowry for entering religious life is well calculated: a healthy body with all its physical strengths; a good head with all its intellectual capacities; an affectivity capable of effectively facing the highs and lows of life; a heart that relates to others and is available for service; a moral sense already accustomed to evangelical discernment and open to pursuing it; a faith rooted in Christ; and all one’s current and future material goods. All of this is humbly, willingly and joyfully placed at the feet of the confreres. What wealth at the disposition of the community! What resources to help suffering people of all sorts in the world! What advantages for realizing the Kingdom! But the gift of self has to be total and irrevocable in its generosity. The one thing to do to assure the Gospel integrity of this act of generosity is to also abandon the proud tendency to keep counting it afterwards.
What matters in having a little dough is that it is shared. (Burundi)
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