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.