Byzantine Catholic Family Matters

Renewing the Christian Family V

The Monastic Life and the Family: Toward Living in a Spirit of Poverty

In my last column I quoted John Paul II: "Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as the spirit of sacrifice, must become a part of everyday life, lest all suffer the negative consequences of the habits of a few." Perhaps it is this instruction of the late Holy Father that can best guide families in their striving to live in a spirit of poverty. St. Francis of Assisi’s total renunciation of his family’s wealth and material possessions and the utter simplicity and poverty in which he lived as a friar is testimony to what it means to radically live the Gospel life, knowing the difference between what is really important and what is at best mere distraction. John Paul’s words encourage us to move in that direction.

Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as the spirit of sacrifice - We are hyper-linked to the world of media through our cell phones, cable and satellite television, satellite radio, the Internet and Blackberries. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with any of these things; what is wrong is how we use them and how seductive they can be.

Recently my wife and I decided that cable was becoming too costly for the relatively small amount of television watching our family does; and we were not happy with the content available to the children on a number of the seventy or so channels our cable provider offered us. We decided to switch to the most basic package consisting of the major networks, two public television stations and one twenty-four hour news station. What we learned from making this switch is that not one of us, from the youngest to the oldest, misses the wide choice of stations. In the three months since making the break from the wide selection of stations available to us, we have also taken the opportunity to borrow a few tapes and DVDs from the library to enjoy as a family.

When we took this small, first step we began to see how that which we thought we needed, we did not. Yes, it is a small, first step; but small, first steps have the ability to allow us to see things in a new light. In this instance, we found ourselves beginning to question the worth of things we had once assumed we needed or wanted.

As discussed in my introduction to poverty in the previous essay, one fruit of living in a spirit of poverty is the freedom to re-focus on our relationship with God and our relationships with one another. Another fruit of living in a spirit of poverty is the monastic practice of extending hospitality to others and, I believe we can say, by extension, service and almsgiving to the poor, the weak, and the sick. Saint Basil the Great very strongly declares, "the very abundance of your wealth is the measure of your lack of love [of neighbor]" While it is very easy for you or me to respond, "But you don’t understand the cost of living today," we need to go back to the task of discerning those things that we need versus those that we want. Following the lead of Saint Basil, we need to begin to consider what we may directly or indirectly be denying others by attending to our wants (as opposed to our real needs). As we make progress in identifying and reducing our wants and consequently our consumption, we can begin to focus on the biblical admonition to tithe with a special emphasis on helping the poor, the weak, and the sick.

In theory there is a simple beauty to living in a spirit of poverty. In practice it goes against the grain of our culture and the messages we hear, see and read in the media every day. Yet Saint Basil’s words are as true today as they were in his time.