POVERTY AND HUMILITY

Francis was convinced that such brotherhood as he envisaged could not be practically lived without another importance gospel prerequisite, namely ‘minoritas’ (minority or being a lesser brother) which he concretized in his own person with the double virtues of ‘poverty and humility’. If the povererllo of Assisi, renowned for no other reason than a veritable re-creation of the ‘gospel form of life’, had the ‘most high poverty’ as the main hallmark of his brotherhood, he had indeed is reason. For in the spirituality of Francis, poverty did go along with her sister holy humility; but still neither of them was an end in itself. They both together were merely means to charity. So as far as the early capuchins were concerned, poverty together with humility was not only their primacy evangelical option in the following of Christ but also ‘the great liberator of the mind for the love of God and neighbor” i.e. to put into practice fraternal love and ‘provide of the best disposition for true prayer’. We would understand this better if we bear in mind that ‘the poor are not always visible’. For we all suffer ‘structure amnesia’. (Remember the rich man of the gospel and the poor man, Lazarus). It is only the poor who recognize the poor. When a section of the brothers and sisters are out of our perspective, we also do not truly ‘pray’. Prayer is possible only in total solidarity with all God’s people. 

             Poverty and humility therefore had a strong emphasis in content as well as witness among the capuchin, all the exaggerated extremes of a return to st. Francis notwithstanding. The capuchins did not own anything. They lived by work and when it was insufficient they faith gladly had “recourse to the table of the Lord” Putting thus their faith daily to the test with regard to God’s providence and the goodness of the people. True to the spirit of Francis, their dwellings were constructed with ‘vile materials’ and were known to be fit only for ‘pilgrims and strangers’. Their churches were as small and simple as not attract people to them, because as the constitutions said “we do a greater good by preaching in churches belonging to others…” to experience better the virtue of non-appropriation, the houses and lands where the brothers lived had different immediate owners who could well deny them the permission to continue to live if they so willed. The brothers would then naturally go joyfully to other places “with the blessing of God to do penance”, as Francis had written in the testament. More importantly, the brothers could leave them, whenever necessary, without undergoing in the least the usual pangs of attachment or pain.

  The voluntary poverty of the capuchin entailed a further natural consequence, in that it fostered an all-importance and unflinching solidarity with the poor. In the general chapter of 1535 itself, the capuchins had in this respect laid down two heroic resolutions: one, the obligation to help the poor in time of need and shortage; second, and the obligation of assistance to those afflicted in time of epidemics. Obviously these two realities were rather frequent at that time and those who ordinary suffered most were the people. In our own day these heroic prescriptions have all but disappeared from our constitutions. Still capuchin conscience, inured as it is for centuries to be always sensitive to these duties towards the poor cannot but cherish ‘a preferential option and love for the poor’.