The Jesuit vow of poverty is not a vow of “absolute” poverty – instead, it is a vow of indifference towards all created goods in the world. We Jesuits are asked to be as ready to abandon our possessions as to retain them, depending on what our mission requires. We try to cultivate a disposition of “open-handedness,” neither clinging to what we are given nor closing our hands to what the Lord desires to give. And while such poverty ought to demand more from a vowed religious, this disposition need not be something reserved to religious life: the Lord is calling us all to something much like this poverty in today’s Gospel.
“Guard against all greed,” Christ says. It is not the case that created goods are evil, or that we must be completely destitute to be holy. But consider the rich man that Christ describes in today’s Gospel passage: this man hoards his wealth for his own future benefit, with closed, clinging hands. He does not consider how he might use that wealth for God’s glory, so as to store up treasure in heaven. And when his life is suddenly demanded of him, he can take none of that wealth with him – his wealth, and he himself, has failed to serve its purpose.
Many of us are blessed in this world with possessions. Our enjoyment of these goods is not wicked; in fact, it is a great joy of creation. But the Lord is inviting us to cultivate a disposition of poverty, so that we can be ready to let these things go if it is for God’s service. Today, let us pray for the grace of open-handedness, so that we can receive and let go readily, whenever the Lord requests it.