From Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation
Dear friends, it has been too long and there has been so much going on in our world. Part of the way we can find our peace in the chaos is to understand the true meaning of simplicity and living in poverty, as the Franciscans and Beguines modeled.
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The beguines, like their Franciscan contemporaries in Italy, chose to live in poverty, simplicity, and service to those in need. Father Richard points to how we might embrace a life of “poverty,” even in times of sufficiency and abundance:
Letting go of our own small vantage point is the core of what we mean by conversion, but also what we mean by Franciscan “poverty.” Poverty is not just a life of simplicity, humility, restraint, or even lack. Poverty is when we recognize that myself—by itself—is largely powerless and ineffective. John’s Gospel puts it quite strongly when it says that a branch that does not abide in Jesus “is withered and useless” (see John 15:6). The transformed self, living in union, no longer lives in shame or denial of its weakness, but even rejoices because it does not need to pretend that it is any more than it actually is—which is now more than enough! [1]
Mechthild of Magdeburg echoes this teaching:
Those who wish to know but have little love
Remain forever at the beginning of a good life….
Those who simply love and know very little
Are opened to great things.
Holy simplicity is the physician of all wisdom.
It causes the wise [person] to see [themself] for the foolish person [they are].
When simplicity of heart dwells in the wisdom of the mind,
Much holiness results in a person’s soul. [2]
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2014), 71.
[2] Mechthild, The Flowing Light of the Godhead 7.43, trans. Frank Tobin (New York: Paulist Press, 1998), 312, 313.