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Vigils Reading
November 5
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.