Poverty and Freedom

“Where there is poverty, there is found abundance, where there is plenty there is always a need for more”
St. Anthony of Padua

I combine the above phrase with a tribute that I heard Garrison Keilor give the Sisters of St. Joseph. He talked about those women as being the first true liberated women. That caught my attention because we always think of the nuns of our childhood more for their poverty than their liberation. What both items mean to me is that it is only when we can get away from all material possessions as goals that we can we become centered on our true meaning. Maybe there should be a term “poverty of thought” to indicate that state that you can attain when you are ambivalent to your surroundings and possessions but concerned with faith and others. It is hard to pray to God for love when you are really praying for a new gas grill. Using this concept of “poverty of thought” we don’t see it as emptiness as one would first think, but we see this state as one of freedom. In one sense your heart and mind have to be emptied of other things so you can fill it with love, prayer and caring.