Religious poverty

The following is a talk given at our most recent vocations weekend. If you are interested in attending a similar event, please Contact us

Everyone knows that monks and nuns, sisters and friars commit themselves, either explicitly or implicitly to the ‘evangelical counsels’ – that is to say to poverty, chastity and obedience. A real question might be ‘why?’ Why did Our Lord commend and practice this way of life to those seeking to spread the Word? After all it would seem that a well-funded body of independently acting people with normal family lives should function just as well, if not better in preaching the Word. In particular, it would seem that to preach without adequate funds or personnel is simply madness. Yet this has been the model for the Church and for the Order from the beginning of each.

What then is the model of poverty we should strive for as religious? How does this make us like Christ and St Dominic? How does this fit in with the wider culture? How does it affect our relationship with each other in community? What kind of effects does it have in our lives, in our relationship with the poor, in our dealing with the things we have? Is poverty restrictive or liberating?

Voluntary poverty is undertaken for four main reasons: To be in conformity with Christ,

Christ, who lived a life of obscurity and poverty on earth, was born as the homeless and died as the helpless, who instructed those who want to follow Him closely to ‘go, sell all you have, and come follow Me.’ To renounce ones own agendas and possessions in order to be set free emotionally and spiritually from the chains of consumption; To live in Solidarity with the poor – to live as they do in the day to day circumstances of life, and to show love through a sharing in their lot; and finally to unite us with one another in the day to day running of our lives, so as to grow closer together in the bond of charity

Any system of vowed poverty must have each of these ends in view, but it may vary from congregation to congregation and from community to community which element is the most emphasised. Thus for Franciscans poverty seen primarily as solidarity with the poor and with the poor Christ, whereas Dominicans focus a little more on the aspect of unity and freedom for the mission.

However voluntary Poverty does entail conformity to Christ Who ‘was rich, but …became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of His poverty’ An ongoing dispute with Franciscans has Dominicans averring that the poverty of Our Lord is not simply the poverty of abjection: Despite a poor start in life, the model He holds up for us is ratherthe model, for the most part of decent obscurity; as a model for all of us to follow He lived and worked at one of the essential tasks in the fabric of society, and must therefore have thrived or suffered according to the ups and downs of the community He lived in for the first thirty years of His life. The lesson we learn as religious is perhaps not to be singular in our observance of poverty, to take the rough with the smooth, to be ready to have less, as well as more according to the demands of our apostolate.

During His preaching mission His poverty was of a more radical type, involving insecurity about where the next meal and bed would be found, but it was essentially a model in which security was found not in earthly structures but in absolute dependence on the Father for what He ate and what He drank and what He wore. We must be dependent on the Father also. This is perhaps why He sent His disciples out to preach with no money, no spare tunic or shoes, and so on. The important thing is not to depend on earthly things for success.

Poverty however is at base profoundly counter-cultural. Our constitutions as Domminican sisters state that that we ‘declare ourselves visibly for Christ and eternal values by our profession of voluntary poverty.’ This goes against the grain: Happiness in Western culture is seen as being centred on material things. The vow of poverty tells us differently. We renounce personal property and challenge the values of Consumerism, with all its empty show and vain promises. A commitment to poverty should challenge this, and show that human happiness is not dependent on things.

Poverty also has a value because it forces us to live in unity with each other. Augustine, our spiritual grandfather saw the main purpose of religious life as being ‘to live harmoniously in your house, intent upon God, with one heart and one soul (Acts 4:32).’ He sees this as being immediately dependent upon mutual sharing of goods: religious should ‘call nothing [their] own.’ For St. Thomas, for a religious ‘in the attainment of the perfection of charity the first foundation is voluntary poverty, whereby a man lives without property of his own.’ This does not imply that ownership of worldly goods as a community undermines perfect charity since ‘perfection consists, essentially, not in poverty, but in following Christ.’[1]

In our constitution it says that as well as expressing our total dependence on and submission to God and growth in detachment ‘Our common dependence on the community should foster and express… unity of love and purpose among ourselves’

Not owning things individually means that we depend on our sisters for what we need on a day to day basis. We are not autonomous and independent. This leads us to focus on and consideration of the group not ourselves. We may then have to struggle with ourselves – what do we really need, and what do we merely desire? We are forced to confront this together, and to trust each other. We have the right to trust that legitimate needs will be met. What is important in this regard is that we become truly interdependent, and do not as individuals look for our real needs outside the community.

Dominicans are itinerant preachers – which means that our whole religious life has the Holy Preaching as its goal. We ‘contemplate and pass onto other s the fruits of contemplation’, and that contemplation is nourished by study and prayer. We are also itinerant – we travel about to preach. We must therefore have the means to pray, the means to study and the means to travel. Our houses themselves are not our own, but are at the service of the Church, the Order and the community we live in.

Dominican poverty is therefore to be seen seen primarily as a tool and not as an end in itself. We should at the one time have the possibility of carrying out our apostolate, and the time and space to prepare for it, and our houses should not be so small that they are unfit for purpose as places to preach in. If a sister works at a distance she may need the use of a car, and in our modern era, most of us need access to a computer.

This brings its own responsibilities. We should have what we need for the mission, but we should not be excessive, we should not be seen as having straight-forwardly ‘middle-class lives.’ For example, we should have a budget for the books we currently need, but not a large personal library. When it comes to the goods of the community, it is not simply the case that if the community says it is all right, it is all right. We still have responsibilities. Our community life should communally be simple, and geared to the needs of the community ministry, the Congregation/Order and the Church. At a personal level, we have a duty to keep ourselves healthy and able to carry out the ministry – this is part of our ministry in and for the Church. At the same time we should question ourselves about each particular thing whether it is a want or a need.

Sometimes in this context you cannot win. I had a Catholic colleague who openly sneered about my commitment to poverty because I have a lap-top. I said ‘But I need one’ A little while later the same colleague noticed that I don’t have a mobile phone and said this was taking poverty altogether too far. ‘But I don’t need one’ was all I could find to say. In our constitution it says ‘With regard to our personal poverty it is not sufficient to be subject to the will of superiors… religious must be poor in spirit and in fact.’ This means that if some inconvenience overtakes us which is simply that – an inconvenience- in view of our commitment to poverty, we should embrace it rather than flee from it.

In this way we can make an attempt at solidarity with the poor.

Religious poverty demands that we should be aware of the needs of others – it is not simply a self-improvement plan, however commendable. We are as a congregation and a community called to be aware of need, and to contribute to the relief of the misery in the world. Practically this may mean either large-scale donations from our general fund, the addition of items for the local food banks in our weekly shop, or the quiet gift of some of our personal allowance to some good cause. There should be some way in which we directly feel the pinch when we reach out to the poor, the invisible members of our society. If we are serious about this it will change our own self-understanding.

‘As poor people’ our constitution says ‘we must work hard’ and ‘keep our common standards of food, clothing and furniture simple and austere.’ We also have to accept very often that we shall not be paid for the work we do - either in money or in the more subtle forms of payment that are about mutual back-scratching. Such things may come our way, but we should not look for them or expect them.

Many people give us things. We have to respect them by using those things well. The goods of the community belong to the whole community, and to the wider Church. Our Stewardship is of our material goods, and also of ourselves. We should keep both in good working order. – So we should rest enough, eat enough (not too much) get medial care, relax, refresh ourselves, give ourselves time to pray. The preaching ministry makes extraordinary demands upon us. We must be good stewards of our own physical emotional and spiritual health. We should be good stewards of each other – we should support, strengthen and challenge each other.

Freedom from/freedom for.

Poverty gives us freedom from the desire to acquire things and control our environment. It gives us the freedom for conformity to Christ, the life of dependency and trust, a genuine common life, real simplicity, a recognition that what is most precious cannot be bought, but is the people with whom we live, and those whom we serve.

[1] Summa Theologica IIa IIae q188

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