For the Use of

[BarbaraTherese]

ronrolheiser.com/columnarchive/archive_display.php?rec_id=435

…spiritual and radical poverty…

Both of these stories can help remind of something that deep down we already know but tend to forget, namely, that what ultimately undergirds all spirituality, all morality, and all authentic human relationship is

the unalterable truth that everything comes to us as gift so that nothing can ever be owned as ours by right.

Life is a gift, breath is a gift, our body is a gift, food is gift, any love given us is a gift, friendship is a gift, our talents are a gift, our toothbrush is a gift, and the shirts, pencils, pens, medical textbooks we use are each of them a gift. We get to have them, ad usam, but we should never nurse the illusion that we own them, that they are ours, that we can claim them by right. Metaphorically there should be an Abbot in each of our lives from whom we should ask for permission to buy or use anything. That would be a recipe for …

 

[FickleFreckled]

It’d make us more grateful, too.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

It’d make us more grateful, too.

… …we do have a tendancy to bemoan what we do not have without much thought to what we do have, of how we are blest daily, which so many are denied daily…

 

[Allen537]

Most Interesting…

In Carmel,

Br. Allen

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Most Interesting…

In Carmel,

Br. Allen

… …

 

[MarieVeronica]

Very good article, Barb. Thank you so much for sharing.

What wisdom… to remember at all times… that ALL we “possess” is a gift from God. We are born naked… a poverty of sorts. And when we die… it’s just “me and God”. Sure makes a soul THINK.