Word of God: Col 3:1-4
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Insight from the Founders
In the Spiritan tradition, poverty appears as a detachment from material things that, above all, opens an inner path: the path by which a person allows himself to be fully conformed to the poor Christ. Poullart des Places offers a striking witness to this. Born into a wealthy family in Rennes, destined for a worldly life, brilliant and well‑regarded, he freely chose poverty as his evangelical way. On this path, he gave himself without reserve to God, even to the point of sacrificing his life. His radical desire is evident in his own words: “I wanted to see myself one day stripped of everything, living only on alms; having given everything, I did not claim to reserve for myself of all temporal goods anything but my health, which I wished to offer entirely as a sacrifice to God in the work of the Missions; I would have been overjoyed if, after having set the whole world ablaze with the love of God, I could have given even the last drop of my blood for Him whose blessings were almost always present to me” (Retreat 1704, Reflections on the Past).
Libermann, for his part, deepens this insight by showing that true poverty is not primarily an external deprivation but a state of the heart — an inner space where the Spirit becomes the sole principle of life. He calls for total availability, a way of being in which a person allows himself to be entirely guided by God:
“Be in God’s hands as a man who is dead and annihilated… Live and feel, therefore, only in God and according to God. (…) Have no life of your own any longer, but let Him alone live within you. Seek nothing and have no movement of your own, but let Him alone be the sole life and the sole movement of your soul. We must be entirely dead to ourselves and to all things; and then our life will be hidden in God with Our Lord (cf. Col 3:3), to whom we shall be intimately united by all the powers of our soul. Since the soul is entirely empty of creatures and of itself, the Spirit of Our Lord will be all life within it” (ND I, 214–215).
For Libermann, this interior poverty is inseparable from profound humility — an attitude that holds together the awareness of our nothingness and the greatness of the vocation received: God chooses what is weak to manifest His strength.
Reflection
In the light of our Founders, Spiritan poverty appears as an inner journey in which a person allows themselves to be shaped by God so as to become a source of apostolic life. It involves material detachment, but it is fulfilled above all as a way of standing before God: an attitude that consists in receiving everything from Him, living from Him, acting through Him.
Claude Poullart des Places’ experience illuminates this path. His encounter with the poor was part of a genuine spiritual journey. From Saint‑Yves Hospital to the Savoyard chimney sweeps, and then to the poor aspirants to the priesthood, he discovered that poverty is not merely a social condition: it became for him an inner call that broadened his heart and transformed his outlook. In 1703, he took a decisive step: he chose to live with the poor, in their simplicity and poverty. It was they who gradually freed him from his securities and privileges, rooting him in total trust in God. His home became a cenacle where poverty was lived as a mysticism of the Kingdom. His death, which occurred among those he had chosen as brothers, marked the fulfilment of this journey: poverty freely embraced is completed in the total gift of self. His legacy endures: to be poor in order to serve the poor, to the very end, in absolute trust in the Holy Spirit.
For Libermann, true poverty is a state of the heart in which the Spirit becomes the sole principle of life. The apostolic person knows himself to be poor because he is nothing other than what he receives from God; he is poor because he remains empty, praying, asking; he is poor because he gives back everything he receives, just as he receives it — as coming from God. This inner attitude opens the person to the very dynamic of God, which Libermann describes through the image of the Source. In this perspective, God appears as Gift: the Father, creative and merciful Gift; the Son, total Gift of himself even unto death; the Spirit, the Gift of the Father and the Son — each a Source of life for humanity.
Before this mystery, the apostolic person recognizes himself as a wellspring of poverty, entirely turned toward receiving God’s Gift. The more he empties himself, the richer he becomes in God. Thus, God, the Source of life, enables the person to become in turn a source and a river: spiritual poverty becomes the condition for apostolic fruitfulness, for it allows the very richness of God to flow through him.
This is why Libermann describes the apostle as an instrument in God’s hands, employed according to the Master’s designs. It is in this inner openness, rooted in poverty of heart, that a person truly becomes a bearer of the Source of life.
Questions for reflection
- In light of Claude Poullart des Places’ journey, how do the situations of material, social, or spiritual precariousness that we encounter today awaken in us a renewed call to mission?
- How does Libermann’s invitation to inner poverty illuminate the way we pray and live in community, as a space where we learn together to receive everything from God?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, you who made yourself poor to enrich us with your love, open our hearts to that poverty which leaves all space for your Spirit. Following the example of Claude Poullart des Places, teach us to leave behind our securities and enter into trust. In the school of the Venerable Libermann, make us docile instruments in your hands.
Lord, empty us of ourselves and make us poor so that we may be available, poor so that we may be fraternal, poor so that we may be missionaries. May everything in us belong to you, and may everything in us speak of you.
Amen
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