In his homily during Mass at the Casa Santa Marta, His Holiness Pope Francis dwelled on the three ways of living poverty in the life of the Christian and reflected that even today there are many Christians persecuted for the Gospel. His reflection begins with the Collect Prayer, which emphasizes that through Saint Luke, the Lord wanted to reveal his predilection for the poor. The Gospel (Lk 10:1-9) then speaks of the sending of the 72 disciples into poverty – “do not carry a purse, bag or sandals” – because the Lord wants the disciple’s path to be a poor one. The disciple attached to money or wealth is not a true disciple.
As reported by Vatican news, The first form is that of being detached from money and wealth and is “the condition for beginning the path of discipleship”. It consists in having a “poor heart”, so much so that “if in the apostolic work there is a need for structures or organizations that seem to be a sign of wealth, use them well – but be detached”, the Pope warns. The rich young man of the Gospel, in fact, moved the heart of Jesus but was then unable to follow the Lord because he had “his heart attached to riches”. “If you want to follow the Lord, choose the path of poverty and if you have riches because the Lord gave them to you, to serve others, your need to be, detached from them. The disciple must not be afraid of poverty, on the contrary: he must be poor”, Pope Francis states clearly. “The second form of poverty is that of persecution. Always in the passage of today’s Gospel, in fact, the Lord sends the disciples “like lambs in the midst of wolves”. And even today there are many Christians persecuted and slandered for the Gospel. There is, then, a third form of poverty: that of solitude, of abandonment. An example of this is today’s First Reading , taken from the Second Letter to Timothy, in which the “great Paul”, “who was not afraid of anything”, says that in his first defence in court, no one assisted him: “everyone has abandoned me”. But he adds that the Lord was close to him and gave him strength.
The Pontiff’s concluding invitation was to pray for all the disciples, “priests, nuns, bishops, popes, laity”, so that they “may know how to walk the path of poverty as is required by the Lord “.
