St. Anthony of Egypt, St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, St. Lucy Pak Hiu-sun and St. Katherine Drexel: What do these saints all have in common? And what do they have to do with this week’s readings from Amos, Psalms, Timothy and Luke?
Each of these saints lived this Sunday’s readings in their own way and in their own time and place. Upon hearing Matthew 19 read aloud in Church, St. Anthony followed Christ’s instruction to the letter, giving away all of his possessions to follow him. St. Francis, too, tried to live the poverty of the Gospel quite literally. As the first “Friar Minor,” he called his neighbors to a life of poverty as a form of praise to God. St. Clare responded to St. Francis by founding the Poor Clares, who also live in poverty. St. Lucy Pak Hui-sun, a Korean lady-in-waiting to the queen of Korea, also gave up a life of wealth upon hearing the Gospel. Converted, she became one of the 103 Korean martyrs in 1839. Blessed Pier Giorgio cared for the poor of Turin, Italy, sacrificing his young life for them. St. Katherine Drexel, too, was a wealthy heiress. She gave her wealth to missionary work, including the first Black Catholic parish in Chicago under the care of Venerable Augustus Tolton.
In short, each of these saints lived in evangelical poverty. To live evangelical poverty means nothing less than to imitate God’s own work of raising up the lowly and the poor. Such a life announces the Gospel because it is the Gospel, enfleshed in the life of the saint. The readings for today further describe this enfleshment as a form of praise and thanksgiving.
St. Francis, perhaps the most famous saint from our litany, expressed his gratitude and his praise quite literally. He would not touch money, begging for all he needed. God, Francis knew, gave up everything on our behalf. Our Creator, having created all things, was “made flesh,” becoming a human being “for us and for our salvation.” Thus, imitating the Creator’s descent into the poverty of creatureliness, Francis put himself at the mercy of his neighbor. He recognized the true wealth of the human person: God.
Though Our Lord Jesus Christ was rich, he became poor so that by his poverty you might become rich. Alleluia, alleluia.
Elsewhere in the Gospel, Luke offers us a less literal understanding of poverty. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Blessed, in other words, are those who recognize their need for God and his love. We could say it this way: “Blessed are the humble.” Humility praises God, emptying our hearts of all things that are not God, and so opening our hearts and minds to his love such that we can receive it and fill our hearts with it. Such that we might imitate it and enflesh it.
In closing this week’s column, then, I would like to point to another saint: Our Lady, Mary. She lived in the poverty of humility and in gratitude to God, her savior. She enfleshed God’s love in a most unique way. As we praise the Lord this Sunday with the words of the responsorial psalm, we will hear echoes of Mary’s magnificat:
“He raises up the lowly from the dust; from the dunghill he lifts up the poor to seat them with princes, with the princes of his own people” (Ps 113:7-8). And we are to respond, “Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor.”
Echoing Mary and all the saints who were “poor in spirit,” let us enflesh our praise and our gratitude, each in our own way. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. …”
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