FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
One of the main social problems of the world today continues to be poverty: involuntary, forced poverty. Forced poverty is an evil that cries to heaven! In a world of plenty, many rich and powerful flaunt their material wealth, and many others not so wealthy overconsume and do not share. Simplicity continues to be urgently needed.
Jesus’ lifestyle is a simple style. Our Lord asks all his followers to live a simple, sober, austere, frugal lifestyle. Our saints – our models – lived and live a life of simplicity, sobriety.
DESCRIPTION OF SIMPLICITY
Simplicity is a virtue that “furthers human flourishing, both individual and social, and sustains nature’s ecological flourishing” (Dictionary). Simplicity is a virtue similar to sobriety, frugality and austerity.
Closely connected with temperance and charity or love, simplicity or sobriety is the virtue that inclines us to have good relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with creation (cf. CCC 1809). Writes Pope Francis: “If we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously” (LS 11).
Simplicity makes us long for God and his love. It is grounded on the firm rock of divine grace, and manifested in a hopeful faith in God. Prayer, meditation, silence connect us to God, who is our Creator and Father, who, through Jesus in the Holy Spirit created us equal in dignity and opened to others in loving simplicity. Our soul is simple when in all that we do or desire we have no other aim but the love of God (St. Francis de Sales).
Simplicity aids us to have harmony within our own selves. This graceful harmony is attained by the light of reason, the strength of the will and the control of the passions of the appetite: “The body under the spirit and the spirit under God” (St Augustine). In a noisy and hectic life, we need to cultivate our inner life, prayer, silence. Sinners all that we are, we cannot have peace within ourselves if we do not have peace with our merciful God and with others. It is interesting to note that silence, a virtue connected with sobriety, moderates our use of words and tempers our apparent penchant for noise and loud sounds. The virtue of silence consists in a kind of balance between speech and silence (S. Pinckaers).
Simplicity is a virtue that inclines us to have humble and compassionate relations with others, in particular with the neediest. Piercing words: At the end of the journey, when the being of the person will be unveiled, the judge will not ask: Were you a man or a woman? Were you married or not married? Did you have children or not? What he will ask is more universal, deeper and simpler at the same time: “I was hungry, did you give me food? I was exiled, naked, sick, in prison, did you serve me? Every time you did this to one of these my little brothers you did it to me” (Mt 25:31-46). Only this universal fraternity, which is reflected in concrete service towards the neediest, manifests us as signs of God on earth.
Finally, simplicity helps us to have a respectful and responsible relationship with God’s creation. It aids us be detached from material things and to value them as useful goods, and to be ecologically responsible. José Mújica, former president of Uruguay says: “Sobriety is a luxury to be able to be free. Freedom is what gives flavor to life. We must learn to live with what is necessary, and I do not make an apology of poverty.”
Simplicity or sobriety is the virtue or the good habit that firmly inclines us not to be compulsive consumers. It aids us to resist the temptation to consume without limits. Consumerism, focuses on having more and not in being more. It feeds the desire for material things while numbing the virtues of compassion and solidarity with the poor. Happiness consists not in having more but in needing less and sharing something with the needy. Simplicity inclines us to be detached of the things we do not need, and others need. It condemns a culture of consumerism and of waste, a throwaway culture. Against the culture of consumerism, Pope Francis proposes a culture of simplicity and care ((LS 84, 231). Simplicity, sobriety says no to extreme, compulsive, obsessive consumerism, a consumerism which is self-destructive and is not in solidarity with the poor.
OUR RESPONSE
The Parable of the Last Judgment (cf. Mt 25:31-46) knocks often at the door of my heart questioning my lifestyle and my obligation to live a simple lifestyle and to share something with the poor and needy. This obligation is for all believers in Jesus; in a special manner, for those of us who have vowed voluntary poverty.
Every Christian has to be poor in spirit as a condition of discipleship (cf. John Paul II, VS 18). Poverty in spirit entails – at least – detachment from material things, a simple life style and solidarity with the poor. It implies the power to recognize Jesus in the poor, the suffering, and the “fallen” on the highways of injustice, violence and hatred.
Let me recall the well-known story of a precious stone. One day an itinerant monk found a precious stone and placed it in his bag. Another day, he met a traveler, who saw the precious stone in his bag and asked him to give it to him. The monk gave it to him. The traveler was very happy. However, days later the traveler realized he was not happy: he wanted more and more things. He went back to the monk and gave him back the precious stone while asking him: Now I ask you to give me something much more valuable than this stone. Please, I beg you, give me what allowed you to give to me your precious stone. The traveler was asking for a detached, simple, sober and temperate lifestyle permeated by universal love.
Virtues are connected and all, to be truly virtues, ought to be imbued by charity, which is the first and the form of all virtues, and gives life to all virtues. For the Christian, charity is the virtue that gives a new vision – the vision of the heart – to all the virtues. Love, by the path of fraternity and solidarity, perfects simplicity and generosity. Pope Benedict XVI says that the Christian’s program of life, which is Jesus’ program, is the program of the Good Samaritan, the program of “a heart that sees,” a heart that “sees where love is needed and acts accordingly” (DCE 31).
The wise man prays: [O God], “Put falsehood and lying far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but the necessities of life; or I shall be fool and deny you” (Prov 30:8-9). Loving simplicity urges us to live simply so that others may simply live” (Canadian Bishops).