Non-Acquisitiveness of the Spiritual Life

"The vow of non-acquisitiveness can be and ought to be broadened also into the spiritual sphere, and the man giving it, were he to renounce spiritual acquisitiveness, would give him spiritual poverty, for which is promised blessedness. But what is such a spiritual non-acquisitiveness?" - Mother Maria of Paris

I think of the writings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche when I read this.  In particular his book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.  It was his attempt to attack the pride of trying to become better than others...the pride of the hungry ego.

This is a wonderful challenge for us to review.  Sometimes we allow the avarice of the human spirit to go unbridled and unchecked if we feel it is for a holy purpose.  But the fathers and mothers of the desert were clear that this sense of spiritual aggressiveness was the ego hiding behind piety.  It was false piety.

Does this mean that all zeal is unholy?  No, it is a wonderful reminder to us that there is no hiding behind spirituality.  We are to abide in God.  There can be no greed in our piety.  If we are greedy to become more spiritual, then we have missed the point.  The energy of greed, the power of avarice is lurking around even spiritual undertakings and the call to sobriety and balance is present all throughout our spiritual journey.  Not just when we are neophytes.

Poverty of spirit is the mark of the saint.  Humility shines forth from a heart that is simple.

Is your spiritual life an avarice conglomeration of acquisitiveness?  Mine often is.

Renounce All to Gain Everything

"If we responsibly and seriously resolve to fulfill the Gospel truth, upon which hangs in balance our human soul, then we ought to be done with doubts, as we go forth in each partial aspect of our life: we ought to renounce everything that we possess, to take up our cross and follow after Him" - Mother Maria of Paris

The title of today's blog is a quote from Evagrios the Solitaire.  It lines up nicely with the quote Mother Maria echoes from Jesus' very lips.

This renouncing all has plagued Christians and Christianity since it fell out of our Savior's mouth.  And, I am pretty sure that it was meant to do just that.

Approaching the Gospels without being stirred up seems to be an oxymoron.  We are meant to be challenged and offended, I believe.  It is meant to rile us up to the point of change.

Saint Jerome - and other desert fathers and mothers - wrestled with this notion of giving up everything to the point of literally giving up everything.  I believe Saint Jerome's line goes something like this, "I gave up everything I owned - even the book that told me to give up everything I own."  A myriad of other Saints throughout the ages have likewise been attributed with uttering these very words.

Central.

It is a central issue of the Gospels.

Wrestle with it forever.

To those who would yell and scream from the opposite shores that "this smells too much like someone who is trying to earn his/her salvation by renunciation", I leave the words of the man who did give up all:

"The only soul who can claim that grace is a FREE gift of God is the soul who has given up everything to follow after Christ."  Dietrich Bonhoffer,  The Cost of Discipleship

Laying Down Our Life for Another

"We know, that Christ taught us to lay down our soul for another,  -- herein this laying down of soul, this surrendering away of it is also that, which makes man poor in spirit." - Mother Maria of Paris

Mother taught us to follow the command of Christ by laying down our life for others.  She told us this would enable us to fulfill yet another command, to be poor of spirit.

Instead, we often find ourselves in the position of passing judgment on others.  It is easier to condemn others than to lay down your own life for them.

Think of the countless souls who lean over to each other and whisper when a beggar enters their church.  Or what about when an African-American, Asian, Indian, or Hispanic person comes to pray.  How many church members have something to say about anyone who is different than them?  And I don't mean something nice to say.

I am saddened that the world is filled with folks who only look at skin.  I am saddened that so many refuse to look into the heart of differences and discover the beauty of dappled diversity.

Many people have scars that keep them from being able to look deeper.  These scars can be healed.  Many do not have scars and are just living on the fuel of mass fear and hysteria.  This is just plain wrong.

I think that church leaders need to really take a firm stand to eradicate prejudice and "isms" from churches. When will a prophetic figure arise and throw people out of churches - people who take this most fundamental "human" principal (namely the equality of ALL God's children) and use it as a device of division?

When will that happen? When will someone stand tall and say things that upset the-old-white-guard in christianity?

We have seen a lot of chaos in our own lives that disturbs me to my core. First, when we cared for babies with AIDs. Next in the mixing of "races" in our family and home. People have said and done things that hurt us - because we opened our lives to others.

Christians should be paving the way for the rest of the world to follow. Instead, old men and women of "faith" continue to sit in the back rows and pews whispering about any form of difference that walks into their congregations. Let's get riled up.

This is not acceptable.  This is not CHURCH.


We are called to lay down our lives for another, not to lay down their lives for us.

Suffering

"God does not only not punish by suffering, He even ameliorates the power of suffering by His mercy. And the utmost manifestation of Divine mercy -- is the voluntary sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world."  - Mother Maria of Paris

The notions of blessing and punishment can tell us a lot about a person.  Many believe that when one is "doing well" and is "successful" that the face of God is shining upon them.  Conversely, when people are "doing poorly" and "failing" that the face of God is not shining upon them.

This belief is so shallow that it fails to make a simple a direct connection to Jesus himself.  Jesus was beaten, ridiculed, and killed by the people of his day - from within his own faith and also by those outside of it.  This would mean that he "clearly was not in God's favor" if we believed that "doing well" was a sign of God's favor.

Mother Maria helps us edge a bit closer to a more integrated understanding of suffering in our lives.  She challenges us to dig deeper into our understanding of suffering.  Look past a simplistic answer.

This is from a woman who saw suffering all around her.  Mother got people out of the ghettos of the Nazi regime by putting them in trashcans.  Smuggled outside of the walls in a trash truck, these children of God were able to escape to freedom.  She herself was put to death in Ravensbruk for her "crimes" against the state.

Nazi Germany and the "final solution" itself should also challenge us to look deeper into the meaning of suffering.  The Jews, the Children of God, were put to death for being the children of God.  Can we look at this and apply some simple formula to why people suffer?  I can't.

The issue of suffering is deep and complex.  A portion of the dilemma seems to be that suffering itself is something that we must come to terms with.  Finding an answer to the question of why we suffer is somehow a very important part of what it means to be human.

What seems to mark people as "integrated individuals", or "actualized", or "saints" is an ability to help people in their suffering (and out of their suffering) while still continuing the struggle to find meaning in suffering.  Wrestling with the notions of suffering, we can still seek to put an end to human suffering.  Mother Maria was all about that.

She saw that sacrifice was wrapped up in the process of putting an end to suffering.  Not only Christ's sacrifice, but her's as well.

Gifts the Dying and the Poor May Give

"These rags -- are the rot-corruptible riches of he kingdom of this world. Giving them away, giving oneself away wholly, laying down one's soul, a man renders himself poor in spirit, which is blessed, since then his is the Kingdom of Heaven, in accord with the promise of the Savior, since that he therein is become a possessor of the incorruptible and eternal riches of this Kingdom, and is become so already here on earth, finding joy beyond measure, the giving away of self with a sacrificial love, with the ease and freedom of non-acquisitiveness."      - Mother Maria of Paris

I began this blog because I had an image cross my heart and mind.  The image was of how bereft the dying feel in the inability to give to others at Christmas.

While getting ready to write a new hospice article, it became apparent to me that one of the things we are robbed of in our weakening state approaching death is getting around and do the things we might normally do.  This being the Christmas/Hanukkah holiday season, my mind naturally bent toward the holidays.  Dying people are often so weak that they cannot go out and do the "shopping" required for giving gifts at the holidays.

This thought and impression ran its course and turned into another thought: "that the poor are also robbed of the ability to give, by virtue of their poverty."  And then, I ran across the quotes in Mother Maria on poverty of spirit.

It is true that a viable component to our religious and christian outlook is the ability to give away.  It is of course the central theme in the Gospels.  We are to give away what we are, have, and desire.  All for the sake of Christ.

Think about it, though.  What immense value you have gained in being able to give.  How have you felt filled in your emptying of your self for others.  You give to the poor, to the homeless, to the imprisoned.  You feel full at fulfilling a critical command.

What happens to you when you become poor and can no longer find the means to give - only survive.  Or are lying on your death bed and can no longer give - only survive.  A vital portion of our soul dies when we cannot give.

Can we not discover ways for the poor and the dying to give?  Can we not stretch ourselves beyond ourselves and find ways for the disenfranchised to connect to a simple core value of human fullness - the ability to give to another.

Find ways for the poor and the dying to give.  Find ways for others to connect to the feeling of fullness in the emptying nature of humility and grace.  Surely, it is easy for us to fulfill these calls to self-emptying for ourselves.  Can we look so far beyond our own reality to seek ways to help others fulfill the call to perfection?

Hoarding

"And it is not Christ, but an ideal external to Christianity, that tells us about the hoarding of inward and outward riches. We know, to what this ideal leads, we know the egoism and egocentrism reigning in the world, we know, how concentrated upon themselves people are, on their own peace of soul, on their own manifold interests. We know only too well. The guarding of one's own spiritual world, the closing shut of our eyes leads to this, that people as it were poison themselves, they begin to rot, they are bereft of joy, they become intolerant, they fall listless. In a most paradoxical way, they beggar themselves from out of the process of watching out for themselves, since they degenerate into an eternal self-loving and self-attention. The beggars, the poor, guard over their rags and they do not know, that the sole means is not only to guard them, but also to transform their rags into riches, -- this means to give them away with joy and love, to whomever has need of them."   - Mother Maria

There is no real romanticizing of the poor in Mother Maria's works.  The human condition is plain to her in the poor as it is in the moderately wealthy and the rich.  The condition is that we lean into and tend toward hoarding things, ideas, and emotions.  We stockpile things against a day when there will be nothing for us to gather.  It is the same old story as the Jews hoarding the manna in the wilderness.

The LORD clearly told them there would be enough for each days own needs.  They should not store the manna from one day to the next.  However, hoarding being so appealing, they did hoard the manna.  It molded and rotted.

The value that she extols - for the rich and poor alike - is GIVING AWAY.