Poor in Spirit

[nobody]

Does being poor in spirit mean being detached from your possesions? That is what the following thread explained:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=101122&highlight=poor+spirit

It doesn’t mean that your spirit is “poor” or weak? I always thought this beatitude was to give hope to those of us that try to resist temptation or do the right thing but often fail. Telling us to keep on trying, because someday we will succeed. Was I completely off base?

 

[InLight247]

I once asked this question to my Pastor.
He said it is humble, not arrogant in spirit.

 

[NotWorthy]

Maybe this might help?

The word Jesus uses for “poor”, ptochos in the original Greek,means “poor” but not as in “pauper”—one who works for a living but cannot rise above the poverty level = *penes *in the Greek]. Instead the Greek word *ptochos *[pto-khos] is better translated as “beggar”, one who is completely dependant on someone else for support. In this blessing Jesus is teaching His disciples that the first step on the stairway to heaven is to admit that you cannot make it on your own—in this life or in the next. We are “poor in spirit”, we are not self-sufficient—we admit our dependence on God and that we need Him in our lives rejecting our natural desire for a “self-sufficient spirit”.

It comes from the Agape Bible Study.

 

[Eileen_T]

Hi Nobody,

In my post on that other thread I said

"For me, being ‘Poor in Spirit’ means not having an attachment to material things such as possessions and money.’

I have come to live by the Scripture verses Matthew 6:19-21, 25-34, as much as possible.

Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.

Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment?

And which of you by taking thought, can add to his stature by one cubit? And for raiment why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith?

Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

InLight247, you said

I once asked this question to my Pastor.
He said it is humble, not arrogant in spirit.

That is the next verse, Matt.5: 4 “Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.” I think the meekness here is the humility that leads to obedience, whereas arrogance in spirit leads to pride.

 

[fide]

Does being poor in spirit mean being detached from your possesions? That is what the following thread explained:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=101122&highlight=poor+spirit

It doesn’t mean that your spirit is “poor” or weak? I always thought this beatitude was to give hope to those of us that try to resist temptation or do the right thing but often fail. Telling us to keep on trying, because someday we will succeed. Was I completely off base?

Detachment, yes, but I think it is a bit more radical than “detachment from possessions.”

I think that the key to understanding this beatitude is to realize that we cannot in truth “possess” anything in the way that we often want. “You can’t take it with you” is true, because you can’t really “own” it - you can only use it for a while. The questions then become, “*Why *do we want what we want, and how do we use what we have at our hands?”

One who is poor in spirit realizes, and is content with, the essential poverty of a contingent being. Our very *being *is dependent on the will of Another! We do not even own *ourselves *in an absolute sense - how then can we own anything else? Yet if we trust God, that poverty is OK. We are in HIs hands, and therefore we are safe.

fide