BROADCASTS.com

The Virtue of Poverty V “Follow the naked Christ in nakedness” 5th week of Lent 2021 Lourdes Pinto & Fr. Jordi Rivero 1/30/18  Diary of a MOC, “Mission of the 12”: Mt 10:1-24 My disciples wear My yoke – the wood of the Cross, united to Me. I am their All. Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, Poverty: Poverty and the Cross Poverty has followed Christ even unto the cross. It was here that He really “espoused” poverty. Henceforth one cannot choose the one without the other: neither Christ without poverty, nor poverty without Christ. (p49) If we observe the lives of the greatest lovers of poverty in the history of the Church, we see at once that love for Christ- the desire to “follow the naked Christ in nakedness”- as The Imitation of Christ says- lies at the heart of everything. (p50) In the light of all this, poverty appears not so much as a virtue or a council, or an aesthetical ideal, or even only as a charism, but as an intimate sharing in the mystery of the person of Christ, and by that very fact, in the mystery of His Bride, the Church. (p50) 96. As a Spouse, Your Life Must Be Lived to Console Him —Diary of a MOC. p.269 During the Consecration of the Mass, I felt God the Father speak in my soul. He said, “Are you now ready to become My Son’s sacrifice of love? …You can no longer be concerned about what others think of you nor your reputation; you can be concerned only with pleasing My Son. You are no longer His handmaid but His spouse. As His spouse, your life must be lived to console Him and to be faithful out of love to His desires.” (2/19/11) Poverty, the treasured Pearl ·      “the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in the field which someone has found … he goes off joyfully, sells everything he owns and buys the field” (Mt 13:44). Jesus says that the man sold everything, not in order to look for treasure, but because he had found it. Poverty is not the price we must pay in return for the Kingdom. It is the effect, not the cause, of the Kingdom’s arrival. (P.44, Poverty) ·      I have found the Pearl of great value- poverty.  Jesus Christ, our God, becomes poor. The perfect expression of His poverty is his obedience unto the Cross. He is crucified naked. His nakedness is the ultimate expression of his poverty. He voluntarily allows Himself to be stripped of all his glory and power. The poverty of his nakedness reveals our pride, vanity, sensuality, self-love… When the treasured pearl of poverty is found in Jesus crucified, the soul must be willing to sell everything in order to possess this pearl. I must allow and cooperate with the Holy Spirit to strip me of everything that is mine – material things as well as the more difficult interior things: desires, expectations, securities (worldly as well as talents…), opinions, plans, reputation, knowledge, a total abasement. This can only happen through the burning flame of the Holy Spirit. –   St John of the Cross calls spiritual poverty “nakedness,” which he defines as the renunciations of those goods which can remain in the soul, such as desires, appetites, and consolations. (p113, Poverty) –   2nd Nail of Purification: Simple Path To Union With God *  Now we no longer feel His consolations as we used to, and we must walk in the darkness of faith in perfect trust. We still have emotions, but now, having experienced profound intimacy with God, our union is no longer contingent on consolations (2nd degree of poverty). (p.209)  *  You now live in peace in the darkness of faith without My sweet consolations… (Simple Path # 67, p.209) *  69. Desolation United to Me —Diary of a MOC. In times of desolation, your life has the greatest power and is most fecund. In My desolation on the...