Young Adult
When I was a campus missionary, we missionaries helped lead a lot of retreats. At one of those retreats, the retreat team gathered to pray together before the retreatants were due to arrive and I was weighed down by the feeling that I had absolutely nothing to give. I don’t remember most of the specifics now, just that I felt both completely drained — physically, emotionally and spiritually. As we prayed, I grabbed onto an abstract hope: the idea that God works most powerfully in our weakness. The reality of my poverty was overwhelmingly present, so I told God that he needed to show up and work in me, because there was nothing I could offer on my own. It should not have come as a surprise to me, but it did: The retreat noticeably overflowed with grace.
Another particularly formative experience of poverty for me took place in Florence, Italy. When I think of poverty, I wouldn’t immediately think of living in Italy for a semester, but when my housing plans fell through, my sister and I were about to be homeless in a foreign city, and I didn’t have a backup plan. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt more helpless, but God provided again. For those three months, we lived in the most beautiful home I could have imagined.
My life as a writer now is full of all kinds of poverty, and honestly, it is really hard sometimes. Poverty is not just about a lack of material goods. It’s also about the daily litany of circumstances that can make you feel humiliated, anxious and helpless. Of course, there is another way to read that list: I have daily opportunities to grow in humility, courage and radically practical dependence on God. And the space in my life that I would like to fill with my own plans gets filled instead by a lot of really beautiful things. I’ve seen places I never would have seen otherwise; I experience the joy of pursuing a path (writing) that I feel called to, and I am overwhelmed by the enormous gift of sharing life with friends — old and new. I am weak and selfish, so it depends on the day whether I am living in the beauty or the stress of a life of poverty. But for some reason Christ always chooses poverty, and I think I’m starting to see at least some of the reasons why.
Our right relation to the God who created us is one of complete dependence. Because that dependence is the proper order of creation, it brings with it a paradoxical and life-giving freedom, but getting to that place is not easy. We stepped outside of the ordered-ness of creation in the Garden of Eden by trying to be like a god ourselves, and that temptation remains. We still grapple with the desire to have control of our own lives, to earn our worth, and with the fear that God will not provide for us. Poverty brings us into visceral contact with the reality of our dependence on God, and accepting that dependence makes space for us to receive what God wants to give. As my friend once said, “If I’m not poor, my Father can’t provide for me.”
In the movie “The Song of Bernadette” (about St. Bernadette and the apparitions at Lourdes), there’s a scene where one character is expressing to another their skepticism that the Queen of Heaven and Earth would really choose to come to a garbage dump. The other character responds sharply, “Christ was born in a stable.” I remember almost nothing else from that movie, but that rebuke has stuck with me.
Poverty does not automatically translate to holiness, but it does make a space for Christ to be born. Christ chose a time and place in history where he would be born into abject poverty. And even then, he was born not in the relative comfort of home or even of an inn: Those places were closed to him. Instead, he was born in a stable because that’s where he was invited, where space was made for him. Not everyone is called to material poverty, but everyone is called to make enough actual space in their life and heart for Christ to live in them.
My experience of poverty is small and specific. I have spent much of it grasping at any hint of security I can find. In the times I’ve been able to see and accept my poverty as space for Jesus to live and to be in charge of my life, I’ve seen fruit that’s beautiful and varied and full of life. Some of the gifts that have come with poverty have been solemn and consequential, and others are tiny and all the more joyful for being unnecessary. Sometimes poverty makes you feel like a burden for everyone around you. Sometimes poverty puts you in a position that turns out to be an answer to someone’s prayers. Sometimes poverty looks like stressing about whether you have enough money to hang out with your friends for the day. Sometimes it looks like eating at the nicest restaurant you’ve ever been to because of a friend’s generosity. If that sounds childish to you, I understand. But I am going to hope that it is helping me to learn to receive the Kingdom of Heaven like a child and to make the space in my heart ready to hold the newborn King.
Jacinta Van Hecke, the Catholic Herald’s Young Adult columnist, enjoys the view from her unexpectedly beautiful residence during a three-month stay in Italy as a student. (Photo courtesy of Jacinta Van Hecke)
