Holy Poverty

Holy Thursday

Pope Francis has quickly set out a major theme of his papacy, that of focusing on the poor. He says the church must both serve the poor and be poor itself. He speaks of two kinds of poverty – material poverty and poverty of spirit. Tonight we see Jesus being truly poor, and giving us the example to be the same. Jesus uses the most extreme example of servility – washing the dirt and grime of the streets off someone’s feet – to show us how we are to view and treat others.

Archbishop George Niederauer once said that Eucharist is what takes place on the top of the altar; foot washing is what happens underneath the altar. Both the Eucharist and foot washing are sacrifices, and one cannot take place without the other. Jesus feeds us with the real food of bread and wine yet we are most fully fed spiritually with his body and blood.

Tonight Jesus shows us, his disciples, that his sacrifice was one of great service. He took the place of the lowliest slave in service to his friends just before he gave them himself in the most intimate way possible, as real food and drink. And he then gave himself to them completely the next day when he suffered and died for our sins. 

There is a wonderful prayer in the Rite of Marriage that prays, “For the hungry poor and the hungry rich”. Everyone hungers, some for food and some for something more. Even the richest people in the world need Jesus, oftentimes more so than those who go to bed hungry every night. Jesus once told the rich young man that in order to live the kingdom of God he must first sell all he had and give it to the poor. Jesus wasn’t telling him that his possessions were in and of themselves bad, but that his attachment to them was keeping him from seeing that the true path to salvation is in serving others. Our attachment needs to be to people, not things.

When we meet the physical needs of someone, we also meet their spiritual needs, don’t we? No matter how small the gesture, we are showing them that someone cares, that there is hope, and that they have value, no matter how many possessions they may have. With Jesus, both the giver and the receiver are fed. Wonderfully, it is in service to others that we ourselves are served. When we meet the physical needs of others, are own spiritual needs are filled, whether we are aware of it at the time or not. What Jesus is telling us tonight is that if we serve others consciously aware that it is our duty to do so as disciples, we reap even greater grace and its benefits. And the chief result of serving others is peace. 

I think perhaps Pope Francis was thinking of this when he chose his name. St. Francis was the saint of holy poverty, not just poverty in goods but poverty in spirit. As it says in his wonderful prayer:

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.