Part 4
DETATCHMENT - DOCILITY - DEVOTEDNESS
Evangelical poverty is the heart of the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi. Even the familiar diminutive by which he is still called — ll Poverello, the little Poor Man — affirms this. But why did Francis esteem poverty so highly?
The answer is simple. Francis loved poverty because Christ did.
He was captivated by the mystery of God Incarnate who laid poor
in a manger, lived poor in the world, and remained stripped on the
Cross (TESTAMENT OF ST. CLARE) If his Lord was
so poor in this world that He had nowhere to lay His head,
then Francis would strive to share that material poverty. Yet this
was only a first step on his path to total identification with
Christ.
Assisi's Little Poor Man understood that there was a deeper,
more far-reaching dimension to our Lord's poverty. The early
Christians sensed this when they sang; Though He was in the form
of God Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped
at. He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave.
(Philippians 2:6) Francis saw that the
way to enter as fully as he could into the mystery of Jesus'
self-emptying was through DETACHMENT. Well
acquainted with the frailty of fallen human nature, the Little Poor
Man was quick to remind his followers that they are not truly
poor in spirit who are scandalized and quickly mused to anger by a
single word which seems injurious to their person.
(Admonition 14) He knew that
it is often far easier to give up material wealth than to give up a
long-held grudge, to lower one's pride or to forego manifestations
of wounded self-love. Yet this is exactly the field in which the
virtue of DETACHMENT can reap its bountiful
harvest.
DETACHMENT enables us to enter into the mystery
of self-emptying love. For the goal of DETACHMENT,
whether it is from material wealth or spiritual "riches," is to help
us to live empty of self. In the day-to-day details of life,
DETACHMENT transforms the grasping hand of the old Adam in
us, tightly closed around the forbidden fruit, into the open, giving
hand of the new Adam, Jesus.
The hand which DETACHMENT has opened can grasp
in faith the guiding hand of our heavenly Father and walk the path
of faith in complete DOCILITY. Contrary to what
many think, DOCILITY is not servility, nor is It
naiveté. A dodle person is a teachable person, a lead-able person,
someone who can, in full freedom, be guided in the ways of holiness
— like St. Francis! After the great act of DETACHMENT
which was his public renunciation, we find the Little Poor
Man growing richer and richer in the virtue of DOCILITY
as he let the Spirit lead him along the marvelous path of holy
Gospel living.
DETACHMENT and DOCILITY likewise prepared Francis of Assisi to be a man of deep and abiding DEVOTEDNESS. Once he had detached himself from everything and become a docile instrument in the Lord's hands, no one was more DEVOTED to God and neighbor than the Little Poor Man. Francis, in his loyal, loving, faithful fulfillment of love's every duty, echoed the supreme apologia of DEVOTEDNESS uttered by his Divine Master: That the world may know I love the father... and do always what pleases Him!
Not everyone is called to a life of radical evangelical poverty.
But everyone can learn from St. Francis the great spiritual art of
DETACHMENT which leads to an ever increasing
DOCILITY to the unfolding of God's plan and a
deepening DEVOTEDNESS to the fulfillment of His
will. It is 3-D living that enhances and enriches life, almost
beyond imagining!