*To follow Jesus, we need to be detached from all things.*
Although Christ was rich, he became poor for your sake, so you might become rich by his poverty. “If only we could live with more trust in divine Providence, how many worries and anxieties we would be spared! Then that fear which, as Jesus said, is typical of people who lack a supernatural outlook on life, would disappear.”
“Since your Father well knows what you need, we have every reason to be optimistic on our journey through life, with our souls completely detached from those earthly things that seem so very necessary. God will provide. Believe me, this is the only way to be lords of creation, and to avoid the pitiful slavery into which so many people fall because they forget that they are God's children and spend their time worrying about tomorrow or a future they may never see."
We want to travel through this world with the calm and elegance of people who know how to use and to love earthly things, but without becoming caught up in them; people who don't allow any of the things of this world, even for an instant, to gain mastery over them.
There are certain unmistakable signs of true detachment: “Don't consider anything your own. Don't have anything superfluous. Don't complain when something needed is missing ... When you must choose, take what is poorest and least attractive." If we truly love the Christian virtue of poverty, then we will love its consequences.
Detachment is a necessary condition for following Christ closely. We practice it following our situation, taking care of the material things that we use, such as our own personal effects, our clothing, the furniture in the house, the things we use at work, and so on.
As regards our expenses, “We are parents of a large but poor family. Thus, if at times you feel the pinch of poverty, don't get dejected and don't rebel against it. But you should try to use all the upright means available to get over such a situation, because to do otherwise would be to tempt God's providence. And while you are so fighting, remember also the omnia in bonum!: all things, even scarcity and poverty, work together unto the good of those who love God. Get into the habit, from now on, of facing up cheerfully to little deprivations and discomforts, to cold and heat, to the lack of things you feel you can't do without, to being unable to rest as and when you would like to, to hunger, loneliness, ingratitude, misunderstanding, disgrace..."
Our hope is not based on earthly things; we cannot put our hearts into anything passing. With this conviction, let us ask our Blessed Mother to help us to imitate Christ, who, though rich, became poor for us, and had nowhere to lay his head. Let us ask her to obtain for us the grace of a true and total detachment in the middle of the world.
Video: