CHAPTER IV
POVERTY: SOLIDARITY WITH THE POOR

"Christ himself, the Lord of all, lived in poverty to such an extent that he had nowhere to lay his head. He formed his apostles and disciples, his co-workers in his mission, to live in the same sort of way so that individually they did not own anything." (CR III, 1)

1. INTRODUCTION
The term, poverty, is not understood in the same way by theologians, sociologists or those studying the evangelical counsels. Socio-economic realities that differ from continent to continent color the meaning of poverty in each country. Nonetheless, while recognizing legitimate differences in the understanding and practice of poverty, a certain core of meaning remains. As with the other evangelical counsels, Vincentian poverty takes its meaning in reference to the mission, so that the poverty of the Congregation of the Mission is one that imitates Christ, the evangelizer of the poor, and is inspired by and oriented to the mission. This basic criterion is the touchstone by which the missionary (personal poverty) and the Congregation (communal poverty) uncover an authentic Vincentian way when confronted with the different understandings and practices of evangelical poverty.

2. THE PRESENT SITUATION
Material poverty is the unchosen condition of most of the human race. The daily reality for large sectors of the population in every country is the struggle to obtain the basic necessities of life. Illiteracy, unemployment, hunger and illness continue to exist despite all of the recent technological advances. The suffering of millions is not an occasional occurrence caused by isolated individuals. Societies and economies have institutionalized oppression, covertly or patently. In the words of Paul VI, "There are certainly situations whose injustice cries to heaven" (Populorum progressio, 30). For the poor, poverty is an evil to be escaped.
While impoverishment marks the lives of many, abundance exists for a few. Society holds out the constant invitation to have more and use more. The accumulation and consumption of goods is at times converted into an absolute value without reference to other human values and needs. The use of wealth takes on a purely private character, admitting no social responsibility.
The two extremes of wealth and poverty create a tension for the members of the Congregation. The misery of so many of our brothers and sisters can create within us a longing to live a form of poverty we can never hope to achieve. While the poor experience true poverty, our houses and works distance our lives from theirs. For some members of the community this situation plagues their conscience. For others it breeds indifference to the question of lifestyle.
The media constantly encourage us to conform to the values of the mainstream. Living comfortably is an attractive possibility which easily becomes an end in itself. The ideology of exaggerated economic independence, which St. Vincent sought to avoid, is not unknown in the Congregation.

3. THE VOW OF POVERTY
The Vincentian vow of poverty can be understood only in light of a decision to follow Jesus the evangelizer of the poor. Underlying any discussion of the vow is the fundamental option to hand over one's life for the sake of the kingdom. Otherwise, the concrete formula of the vow of poverty, which describes the juridical minimum that we must do, tends to overshadow our radical consecration for mission. Doing the least bit possible in order to stay within the bounds of the vow is a questionable way to live our self-gift, even if it is legally acceptable.
Historically St. Vincent faced the problem of creating a community of goods, available for mission, without making this community "religious." The juridical problem of not being identified with religious life and the practical problem of not dividing the community along economic lines was resolved in the formulation of the vow, explained in the fundamental statute.
The traditional formulation of the vow simply states: "By reason of our vow we need to have the consent of the superior according to the Constitutions and Statutes when we use or dispose of goods" (C 34). Dependence on the superior is the Congregation's visible form of practicing poverty. The true sense of the permission, besides being a help for the superior in the animation and good order of common life, offers the missionary a means for discernment. "But since his (the superior's) consent is scarcely enough to promote the spirit of poverty, each member must weigh what is more suitable and conformable to our life and ministry, according to the spirit of our Founder as expressed in the Common Rules" (C 34). The needs of the poor, personal and community commitments, pastoral responsibilities, the Vincentian tradition and the fundamental statute on poverty are some criteria, among others, which guide the process of making decisions about poverty.

4. THE VIRTUE OF POVERTY
Vincentian poverty presupposes patterning one's life on the example of the poor Christ, who evangelized the most abandoned. For St. Vincent, missionary poverty was the fruit of contemplating Jesus who, "made himself poor though he was rich, so that you might become rich by his poverty" (2 Cor 8:9b). By practicing poverty, the members of the Congregation "will show that they depend entirely upon God, and their evangelization of the poor will become more effective" (C 31).
St. Vincent, following a long Church tradition, distinguishes between interior and exterior poverty. Both poverty as a way of being and poverty as a way of having are necessary. Without an exterior manifestation spiritual poverty is not credible. Without spiritual motivation material poverty may often be evil. "To renounce the goods of this world exteriorly and to maintain the desire to have them is to do nothing, it is a joke and it is keeping the better part" (SV XI, 247).
The free decision to accept the kingdom of God relativizes all other values. St. Vincent underlines a fundamental motivation for voluntary poverty when he reminds us that "it is renunciation, surrender, abandonment" (SV XI, 246). The goal of poverty, its interior core, is to follow Jesus freely and to participate in his mission to evangelize the poor. All customs, rules, and practical decisions about Vincentian poverty flow from that. The vow not only commits us to the juridical minimum of asking permissions; it also challenges us to find ways of using our goods to pursue our missionary vocation.
The Vincentian mission places us in the world of the poor. Solidarity with our brothers and sisters calls us to a simple lifestyle (C 33). When he wrote: "No one should go in for useless or exotic things. Each one, too, should keep his needs within moderate limits and curb his hankering after such things, so that his lifestyle as regards food, room, and bedding is that of a poor person" (CR III, 7), Vincent reminded us that an intimate connection exists between our lifestyle and our ministry. The willingness to abandon material comfort and security, at least in some measure, makes the service of the poor possible and credible. That is why St. Vincent called poverty the rampart of the Congregation (CR III, 1). On one level a simple lifestyle manifests to the marginalized our desire to stand with them in solidarity. On another level it challenges a society that marginalizes and abandons the poor.
Vincentian poverty fosters a community of service. The communal dimension of our vocation goes beyond simply placing material goods in common. Rather, our common goods exist to promote fraternal union, so that each member's needs are met, mutual assistance is a concrete reality, and economic inequalities and divisions disappear (C 32, 35). We share our goods so that we will be united in the service of the poor.
Our communal apostolic goals demand that the Congregation of the Mission has and uses material goods for the evangelization of the poor. In this context poverty involves the wise administration of goods. Recognizing that "we live from the patrimony of Jesus Christ, from the sweat of the poor" (SV XI, 201), the Congregation tries to use its goods generously for their sake (C 33). At the same time, all of the members are responsible for maintaining and caring for the goods entrusted to them.
Our proximity to the poor asks us to assume, as much as possible, something of their condition. "We should always think, when going to the refectory: `Have I earned the food I am about to eat?'" (SV XI, 201). Just as the poor must labor in order to make a living, missionaries are bound by the universal law of work in accord with the end of the Congregation and the community plan (C 32 § 1).

5. FUNDAMENTAL STATUTE ON POVERTY
Early in the history of the Little Company, St. Vincent thought about formulating guidelines on poverty. Prudence suggested the advisability of distinguishing between a confrere's personal goods and those of the community. Experience indicated the need to clarify the nature of Vincentian poverty in legal terms. After several attempts, Vincent obtained the brief, Alias nos, from Pope Alexander VII in 1659. This statute is still normative, according to our Constitutions (C 35).
Given the fact that members of the Congregation can own property, St. Vincent's concern was to avoid economic divisions in the community and to promote freedom for service. The fundamental statute aimed to do this. The General Assembly of 1980, acknowledging the changes in the economy which have taken place since the seventeenth century, gave an interpretation of this statute. This interpretation does not change the statute; rather, it makes its obligations explicit.
The fundamental statute mentions immovable goods. This concept comes from an era when land, real property, was the chief source of income. The term immovable goods literally means "possessions that cannot be moved" (e.g., a building or a field) or things that are physically mobile but considered to be immovable by the law (e.g., a door or a window). Movable goods are personal property which can be moved (furniture, books, money, etc).
The statute's concern is with property which is income-producing. It states that missionaries maintain ownership of immovable goods. However, they do not have free use of these goods and need the superior's permission to employ them. Alias nos did not mention movable goods. In the seventeenth century such things as bank accounts, stocks and bonds or money markets were not in common use by the population at large as sources of wealth. For that reason the General Assembly of 1980, in its explanation of the statute, considers some movable goods as sources of income or as the equivalent of immovable goods. In other words, the Assembly interprets the statute today to mean this: confreres maintain ownership of income-producing property, movable or immovable, but need the superior's permission to use them.
The members of the Congregation of the Mission do not need permission to maintain their personal property (repairs, etc.) and may dispose of it as they wish in a will or testament. However, according to the statute, a missionary may only employ the yield of this property (interest, rent, dividends) for his personal use with the superior's permission. "This is a permissive norm," not a positive recommendation (Interpretation, A 4). In fact, St. Vincent, commenting on the statute, affirmed: "The use of these goods is not for the individual; he has no need of them; the Company provides for his needs" (SV XII, 383).
Members who possess personal property are obliged to apply the yield or income in pious works (charity, social benefit, etc.) and, above all, for needy parents and relatives (Alias nos). The Constitutions add that our personal goods should also be used for the other members "avoiding distinctions among us" (C 35). These positive norms complement the negative norms of the statute, by urging us not only to avoid amassing fortunes but encouraging us to use our goods for others.
The explanation of the fundamental statute (B 4) recalls that our Constitutions highlight the communal dimension of Vincentian poverty (C 32, § 2). The fruits of one's labor (stipends, salaries, royalties) belong to the Congregation. Moreover, benefits which come to a confrere after incorporation, such as pensions, insurance or social security, become property of the community. This is a consequence of our commitment to form a community of goods and to contribute to the well-being of the other members.
The fundamental statute on poverty (Alias nos) and the explanation of the 1980 General Assembly offer practical directives for living poverty. But they are not the only points of reference for our practice of poverty (B 4). In order to understand the spirit and intention of the statute, we should also take into account:
- our commitment to the evangelization of the poor;
- poverty of spirit (cf. SV XII, 377-386; CR III, 4, 7);
- community of goods (CR III, 3, 4, 5, 6);
- conformity of our life to the life of the poor (cf. CR III, 7);
- the universal law of work (cf. SV XI, 201ff.);
- that the fruits of our work belong to the Community;
- that community goods are to be considered the patrimony of the poor; that we may not, either as individuals or as a community, keep goods non-productive or not invested, with the result that they are not of benefit to the poor.

6. LIVING POVERTY
Avoid accumulating goods. The goal of our poverty is freedom for mission. Vincent knew that attachment to material possessions was a danger: "... then we could bid good-bye to the works of the Mission and the Mission itself ..." (SV XI, 79). A simple lifestyle is a practical means to avoid the temptation to spend our energies on building up our own fortune or on maintaining a comfortable existence. We must be willing to feel the "bite of poverty" even when other possibilities exist.
Using our goods for others. Our vow permits us to retain ownership of personal possessions. The practical realities of our apostolic life demand that the community should have material resources. Since we do not completely abandon material goods, the practice of poverty is tied to the way we use what we have. The great danger is that personal property and community assets get channeled only into meeting our personal needs and wants. Generosity with our goods (also with our time and talents) fosters a spirit of detachment and freedom.
Personal contact and sensitivity to the poor. Although our mission to the poor does not exist primarily for our own benefit, insertion into the world of the poor helps transform our vision and our lives. The poor not only lack the superfluous, but often even the basic necessities of life. They are the victims of institutionalized injustice, oppression and scandalous socio-economic inequalities. Personal contact makes us sensitive to their sufferings, hopes and desires. It enables us to learn from their example of generosity in the midst of want and necessity. The poor can evangelize us by transforming our charity from a private exercise in compassion into solidarity lived out concretely.
Dependence on the Community. According to the Constitutions, the "administrators should provide willingly for the needs of members in all matters which concern their life, particular office, and apostolic work" (C 154 § 2). Dependence on the community, lived in a mature fashion, stimulates a fraternal spirit of concern and shared life. Dependence is also manifested in the seeking of required permissions. This implies, concretely, that each province indicate clearly the types of expenditures for which it is necessary to ask the permission of the superior. When, for example, provinces provide a monthly allotment for confreres, there should be clear norms regarding the amount and uses of such an allotment. There should also be concrete norms regarding the necessary permissions for expenditures made with personal money, since such monies are to be used in conformity with our Fundamental Statute on Poverty as explained by the General Assembly of 1980.
Support for Community. Communal poverty is not just a question of receiving from the community. A concern for the well-being of other members is the other side of the coin. Stipends and other remunerations for apostolic work done in the name of the community are not payment for personal projects. These should be handed over for the good of all the members as an expression of our concern for and identity with other members of the Congregation.
Frequent evaluation. Following the poor Christ as missionaries involves continual conversion. Because the practice of poverty is "a condition for renewal and a sign of progress in our vocation in both the Church and the world" (S 18), a frequent evaluation of our personal and communal practice of poverty is a means toward on-going transformation. The meetings for formulating the house plan and examining the budget are two moments for reviewing our use of material possessions in the light of the Constitutions, provincial norms and the needs of the poor.

POVERTY: SOLIDARITY WITH THE POOR
- Some Texts That May Serve for Meditation -

1. "I shall have the pictures and books you want sent to you, but I feel it my duty to tell you, Father, that we are living at a time when no unnecessary expenses should be incurred. Public misfortune surrounds us on every side. It is to be feared that it may reach us also, and even if it should not, we must be compassionate toward those who are enduring it. Perhaps, once you have laid in your provisions and taken stock of all domestic and related needs, you will be of the same mind about economizing the meager fund you have found." (SV IV, 277-278)

2. "Everything that God does he does for the better; so we have to hope that this loss will be good for us since it comes from God. For the just everything works out well, and we have the assurance that by accepting misfortunes as coming from God they are turned into joys and blessings. So, Fathers and Brothers, I ask you to thank God for the way this affair has turned out, for the loss of this property, and for giving us the attitude of accepting this loss for love of him. It is a big loss, but his adorable wisdom knows well how to have it turn to our benefit, in ways which for the present remain unknown to us but which you will see some day. Yes, you will see that, and I hope that the admirable way in which you have behaved in the face of such an unexpected misfortune as this will serve as a foundation for the grace God will grant you in the future of making the best use of all the afflictions which it will please him to send you." (SV VII, 251-252)

3. "We would give great scandal if, after such a formal judgement, we were to take legal proceedings to overturn it. We would be accused of being too attached to possessions, a standard anti-clerical accusation, and we would be wronging other communities and causing our friends to be scandalized at us if we were to make a big issue of it in the palace.
We have reason to hope, Sir, that if we seek the kingdom of God, as the gospel says, we will not lack anything, and that if the world takes something from us on the one hand God will give us something on the other, which we have experienced since the upper court took this land from us; for God has permitted that a lawyer from that same court who has just died should bequeath us almost as much as that property was worth." (SV VII, 406)

4. "Poverty, then, is the voluntary giving up of all worldly possessions for the love of God, doing so in order to serve him better and to think about one's salvation; it is a renouncing, a shedding, an abandoning, an abnegation. This renunciation is both external and internal, not merely external. It is not enough just to give up, openly, all one's possessions; this renunciation must be internalized, it must stem from the heart. In addition to the possessions one must get rid of attachment to them and affection for them, becoming totally stripped of any liking for the perishable things of this world. Openly giving up one's possessions while at the same time retaining the wish to have them is meaningless, it is a mockery and a holding back of what is most important. God asks mainly for the heart, and that is the main thing." (SV XI, 246-247)

5. "If we have possessions we do not have the use of them, and that is how we are like Jesus Christ who, while having everything, had nothing; he was master and lord of the entire world, he had made all the things which are in it; for love of us, though, he chose to deprive himself of their use; although he was lord of the whole world he became the poorest of men, having even less than the least of the animals: `The foxes have dens, the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head' (Mt 8:20). O Savior, Savior, what will become of us if we have a liking for earthly possessions? What will become of us, in the wake of the poverty of the Son of God? Let those who have possessions not wish to make use of them if they have given this up; and let those who do not have any not want to have some!" (SV XI, 224-225)

6. "So, Fathers and Brothers, there you have the two reasons which oblige us to keep the vow of holy poverty: because we have given our word on it to both the superior and God. The third one that occurred to me is that without this vow it is impossible to live tranquilly in a community like ours; not only is it impossible to live there well, but even to stay there long is impossible. So, Fathers and Brothers, in the third place what I say is that it is extremely difficult, even impossible, for someone whose head is filled with the wish to have possessions to be able to carry out his duties among us and to live according to the rules he has accepted, and follow the ordinary routine of the Congregation. And how could a man who thinks of nothing but his pleasure, of giving joy to his heart, of living the good life, of spending his time in diversions (for that is what those who have this insatiable desire for possessions really intend), how could such a person do the work of the Mission properly? It is not possible...
O Savior! Is that being a missionary? He is a devil, not a missionary. His mentality is that of the world. He is already in the world in his heart and in his preferences, and only his carcass is in the Mission. Looking for comfort, getting enjoyment, living it up, getting noticed, that is the worldly mentality, that is what he wants, that is his spirit." (SV XI, 237, 240-241)

7. "I was wondering recently if it were true that poverty is so beautiful, and what is the beauty of such a virtue that St. Francis called his lady. How ravishing it is! It struck me that it is endowed with such excellence that if we had the chance of seeing it even ever so slightly we would immediately be overcome by love of it and we would never want to be separated from it, we would never abandon it and we would rate it above all the world's goods. Oh, if God were to give us the grace to draw back the curtain which stops us from seeing such beauty. Oh, if he were, by his grace, to remove all the veils which the world and our self-love cast in front of our eyes, Fathers and Brothers, we would be immediately overcome by the charms of this virtue, which overcame the heart and affections of the Son of God. It was the Son's virtue; he wanted to have it as his own; he was the first who taught it; he wanted to be its teacher. Up to his time nobody knew what poverty was; it was unknown. God did not want to teach us about it through the prophets, he reserved it to himself, and he himself came to teach it to us. It was completely unknown under the old law; only wealth was appreciated; no one took any account of poverty, not realizing its merit." (SV XI, 245)

8. "Being a missionary is like being an apostle and it involves, as it did for the apostles, leaving and abandoning everything in order to follow Jesus Christ and become real Christians; many in the Congregation have done just that, leaving their parishes and coming here to live in poverty, in other words in a Christian way; and, as a certain person said to me recently, only the devil could find something to say against the Mission. To go from village to village, for example, to help the poor people save themselves and get to heaven, as you can see is being done. Take, for example, Fr. Tholard who is doing so at the moment, also the Abbé de Chandenier, and where they even have to sleep on straw." (SV XI, 163)

9. "We all want to be Our Lord's disciples. Now, since your call to his service have you felt this love and this affection for holy poverty? We gave ourselves to God for this in order to be his disciples, and we cannot be that without it, without taking on poverty. If we have not done so then we cannot be a disciple of Our Lord to the same extent as if we had done so. But as well as this, if we have not done so sufficiently completely, sufficiently perfectly, let us do so now and give ourselves to God so as to commit ourselves to poverty as fully as possible." (SV XII, 389)

10. "In the course of a conference to his community Fr. Vincent said that the missionaries would be really happy if they were to become poor through showing charity to others, but that they need have no fear of becoming so in this way unless they lacked trust in our Lord's goodness and in the truth of his word.
If, however, God were to allow them to be reduced to the need of going to work as village curates to earn their livelihood, or even if some of them would be obliged to go begging for bread, or to sleep in rags at the corner of a hedge perishing from the cold, and someone were to come along and find them in such a state and ask one of them: `Poor priest of the Mission, what brought you to this extremity?,' what a happiness, Fathers and Brothers, to be able to answer: `Charity.' How greatly this poor priest would be appreciated in the sight of God and his angels!" (SV XI, 76-77)

Chapter V

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