Memorial of Saint Clare, Virgin

 Lectionary: 619

I consider everything as a loss
because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things
and I consider them so much rubbish,
that I may gain Christ and be found in him...

You've said a mouthful!" someone might reply after hearing Saint Paul's letter to the Philippians. On this feast of the Poor Lady from Assisi, his words are worth pondering. 

Pope Francis, in his encyclical Laudato si' has demonstrated the link between wasting the Earth's natural resources and poverty. Both are exploitation of something precious, and they are inseparable. Every effort to save the Earth must address the crisis of poverty; every regulation, statute, or law which might reduce the gap between wealth and poverty must also reduce waste. 

We see some extremely wealthy people today who are truly trying to relieve the stress, but the system is such that they cannot give their money away faster than they accumulate more. And we see several billions of people struggling in poverty with no hope of escape, despite their own best efforts. 

Well-intentioned people like you and I can choose from a smorgasbord of issues and confidently declare, "This challenge is apocalyptic!" whether we're naming racism, exploitation of the earth, sexual abuse, suicide, or any other cause for alarm. The farsighted among us call it an existential crisis; we call it Original Sin. It began with Adam and Eve. 

Saint Paul discovered his calling -- his particular way of addressing the crisis -- in 

"the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things..." 

Saint Francis discovered that Way in the footsteps of Jesus, while Saint Clare begged the Roman pontiff for  the "Privilege of Poverty." When virtually the entire world feared and despised poverty, seeing nothing but the darkest side of destitution, these three individuals charted a new, unexplored path to salvation.

“Whoever dies with the most stuff wins.” David Mitchell wrote in his novel, Number9Dream. I've not read the book and cannot recommend it, but I like that ironic and pithy statement. Americans seem to believe it, and the discovery of hoarders in every family, company, and church only proves how intensely we've bought into that heresy.

We expect justification or righteousness not as the precious gift of our Crucified Lord but as something to be won in a desperate winner-take-all contest with every other human being on earth -- at the expense of Earth itself. 

Saint Clare begged Rome for the privilege of poverty. In other words, she and her sisters would not be required to accept unwanted gifts from wealthy well-intentioned patrons. They would not own property larger than their enclosure with its flower garden; they would have no investments; they would accept their daily bread from neighbors and no more. They had only one sacred image in the convent, the San Damiano crucifix. Nor would they have any greater security than a privacy wall around their convent. If hard times fell upon the region, they would suffer with their neighbors. 

Like the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, they would trust in God for provisions, protection, and their health. They believed that God would literally save them from harm. And they would wait on the Lord for their salvation -- or justification, righteousness, worthiness, purpose, or meaning. (Call it what you will; it's all the same thing.) 

When a Saracen army invaded the Umbrian Valley, the women were virtually helpless. The people of Assisi, watching from the hill above them, could only watch in dread. But the marauding army passed them by. Eight hundred years have passed and the Poor Ladies of Assisi still wait on God's providence. 

As we face disasters of biblical proportions, we again turn to the Lord for deliverance. There is no other way. With one voice Jesus, Clare, Francis, and Paul teach us to consider...

consider everything as a loss

because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things

and I consider them so much rubbish,

that I may gain Christ and be found in him...