Monday, November 22 : Blessed Charles de Foucauld

O my Lord Jesus, how quickly will a person become poor who, loving you with all his heart, is unable to bear being more wealthy than his Beloved. How speedily will he become poor who, reflecting that all that is done to one of these little ones is done to you and that all that is not done to them is not done to you (Mt 25:40.45), brings comfort to all the neediness within his power. How quickly will he become poor who receives your words in faith: “If you would be perfect, sell what you have and give to the poor. Blessed are the poor. Everyone who has given up his possessions for my sake will receive a hundred times more and in heaven, eternal life” (Mt 19:21.29; 5:3) and so much more. O my God, I cannot believe some souls are able to see you poor and yet choose to remain rich, to see themselves as so much greater than their lord, their Beloved, and not want to be like you in everything insofar as it depends on them, especially in your humiliations. (…). In my view, anyway, I cannot think of love without a pressing need for conformity, for likeness and, above all, for sharing all the pains and difficulties, all the hardships of life. To be rich, at ease, living comfortably off my possessions when you were poor, afflicted and living painfully off a hard labor – no, I cannot, my God; I cannot love like that. It isn’t right that “the slave should be greater than his master” (Jn 13:16), nor that the bride should be rich when the Bridegroom is poor. (…) As for me, it seems impossible to me to comprehend love without a seeking for likeness (…), without a need to share in every cross.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team