Dear Parishioners, we need to consider for our reflection some Mendicant Model of vowed Lifestyle. They are:

i) St. Francis of Assisi

He belonged to a relatively wealthy class; the key insight to his conversion is the importance that he gives to work without social promotions. For him, mendicancy is not a means of survival but is intended to be an exercise of poverty and effective humility. Poverty places the mendicant in the same situation of rejection that Jesus experienced in his lifetime. For this reason, poverty is not intended to be a rejection of temporal goods, but as a participation in the life of the suffering Christ. Francis brings to the fore the importance of the Sequela Christi as the context within which to understand the meaning of poverty.

ii) Dominic

Dominic on the other hand, identifies poverty with begging in the context of itinerant preaching. Friars should live on alms when they preach. But poverty is not sought for itself. It forms part of the complex whole of fraternal life and the preaching of the Gospel. Dominic believes in the personal and social liberation that poverty provides. He views poverty as a social condition demanded by the humble mission of proclaiming and defending the truth of the Gospel.

iii) The Society of Jesus

These attempted to recover the radicality of poverty while harmonizing it with the needs of the apostolate. Poverty is therefore seen as the ascesis of renunciation and availability for the apostolate. Houses run by Jesuits are not to have goods other than necessary. However, Jesuit schools can acquire temporal goods for the sake of the apostolate.

iv) The way of life (Forma de Vivir) of the Augustinians

This distinguishes exterior poverty (not possessing things) from interior poverty (not desiring to possess things) and gives priority to the latter. The distinction is made evident when the Forma de Vivir exhorts the brothers that we be poor in our possessions and in their use. The priority of interior poverty over exterior is patterned after a relationship of a means to an end. True poverty in a Religious does not consist only in not possessing things, but and principally, in not having a desire or an attachment for anything; this is the end toward which exterior poverty is ordered. Happy Sunday to all of you!