Vigils Reading

VOLUNTARY POVERTY

From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux3

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Jesus entered into a certain fortified town, and a certain woman, named

Martha, received him into her home. The fortified town where Christ entered is

voluntary poverty, which protects its inhabitants from twin attacks that assault

lovers of this world: one’s own envy, of course, and that of another. You see,

poverty, as long as it is considered wretched, is not envied by others. And

because poverty is voluntary, it envies no one anything.

These two sisters signify the two lifestyles of those who love poverty.

Certain careful people, with Martha, prepare two dishes, that is, correction of

works with the salt of contrition, and works of piety with the seasoning of

devotion. But those who, with Mary, give all their time to God alone,

contemplating what God is in the world, what in human beings, what in angels,

what in himself, what in the condemned, contemplate God as ruler and pilot in

the world, liberator and helper of human beings, flavor and beauty of angels,

beginning and end in himself, terror and horror of the condemned: wonderful

in creatures, lovable in human beings, desirable in angels, incomprehensible in

himself, intolerable in the condemned.

3Sermo 48, Bernard of Clairvaux Monastic Sermons, CF 68. pg. 244.