Easter Weekday

THE SACRAMENT OF POVERTY
From “The Starved and the Silent” by Fr Aloysius Schwartz4
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Christ lives on in the world today and exerts his influence upon it in three
ways: 1) the Eucharist, 2) the inspired word of Scripture, and 3) the person of the
poor. He who made us dwells among us. He can be found not only in the silence
of our tabernacles and in the solemn language of our sacred books, but also on
our streets and in our marketplaces. The living Christ is as close to us as the
nearest poor person…

Down through the history of the Church, the saints, with that penetrating
insight and clairvoyance which characterized them, always saw Christ in the
person of the poor… A typical story is that related in the life of St. Martin of
Tours. Of a cold wintry night Martin of Tours was returning to Amiens on
horseback. A beggar, half-frozen from the cold, asks for alms in the name of
Christ. Martin has nothing except his weapons and his clothes, so he rents his
cloak in two, gives one half to the beggar, and continues on his way. The
following night Christ appears to Martin, clothed in the half-cloak which he gave
the beggar, and speaks these words: “Martin, catechumen, has covered me with
his garment.”…

It requires faith of the deepest kind to see God present in the person of the
poor. It requires the faith of the centurion… who could look up at the crushed
figure of Christ upon the cross, a figure in whom there was neither beauty nor
comeliness… an object of scorn and ridicule… and say: “Indeed this was the Son
of God.”…

The Son of God could have cast himself down unhurt from the pinnacle of
the temple and in a blaze of spectacular circus glory forced the belief of all
onlookers in the divinity of his person. He also could have fed the crowds with
loaves and fishes not once or twice, but every day in order to buy their love. But
God did not want to force belief nor to buy love. He wanted it given in humility
and lowliness or he wanted it not at all…

So it is that the Infinite God chooses to reveal himself to man through the
most finite of finite things: the commonplace, everyday elements of bread and
wine, the simple words of human language, a child born in a stable and later
nailed to a tree, and the teeming masses of the poor who will always be with us.
Man’s eyes must be washed with truth and his heart cleansed with humility if he
is to come to God on these lowly terms…

The poor have been… anointed by poverty and suffering to become
mediators between man and God. Through them, men are permitted to sacrifice
themselves to God, and in turn, God gives himself to men. Christ’s presence in
the poor marvelously complements his presence in the Eucharist. In the
Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Son of God gives himself to us in the form of
bread; and we approach the table of communion as spiritual beggars – with
outstretched hand and hungry heart. In the “sacrament of poverty,” the roles are
mysteriously reversed: Christ is now the beggar, and he humbly approaches us
and pleads with us to give him bread… Although the mode, manner, and means
may differ, there is a great similarity between Christ dwelling in the Eucharist
and Christ dwelling in the person of the poor. In one case the presence is
sacramental, in the other social or mystical. In both cases the presence is real.

4 Schwartz, Aloysius. The Starved and the Silent. Garden City, NY: Doubleday &
Company, INC., 1966. 156-159, 161.