Poverty is the life of the angels; Angels: Day 267

St. John Chrysostom lived in a time much like our own, when everyone seemed to be trying to get rich quick. But why, he asks, do you want to be rich? Poverty is the secure life. Wealth  is constant worry, but poverty is the carefree life of the angels.

But since it is right not only to lament and to blame, but also to correct, let’s see why this passion and this evil have become an object of desire to you.

Why, then—why has wealth come to be an object of desire? Because, you say, it puts me in honor and in security. I ask, in what kind of security? It makes me confident, you say, that I won’t suffer hunger or cold, or be hurt, or be despised.

Well, then, if I promise you that security, will you refrain from being rich? If this is why riches are an object of desire, then if you can have security without riches, why would you need riches anymore?

And how is it possible, you say, to have that security if you’re not rich? Well, I say the opposite: how is it possible if you are rich?

To be rich you have to flatter many, both rulers and subjects, and to beg countless numbers of people, and to be a base slave, and to live in fear and trembling, and to regard the eyes of the envious with suspicion, and to fear the tongues of false accusers, and the desires of other covetous types.

But poverty isn’t like that. It’s completely the opposite. It’s a place of refuge and security, a calm harbor, a gymnasium and fitness center to learn self-control, an imitation of the life of angels.

Hear these things, all you who are poor—and especially all you who want to be rich. It’s not poverty we should be afraid of, but not being willing to be poor. –St. John Chrysostom, Homily 90 on Matthew, 3

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