The Poor in Spirit

August 25, 2026 

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Hello!  How is each and every one? Who does not want to go to Heaven?  At present I am reading Bishop Fulton Sheen’s Go to Heaven, A Spiritual Road Map to Eternity.  I am sure you and I would like to qualify to this beatitude ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ because Heaven will be ours. And it is said that even now on earth we can enjoy this beatitude though not perfectly as in the next life.  So how do you and I level up to that enjoyment now? 

Being poor in spirit means we enjoy all of God’s provisions (our life, faith, talents, time, work, family, everything you and I are and have) while we use them in knowing Him, in loving Him and in serving Him in this life.  And yet being detached from all of those provisions, implies not setting them as ends but rather as means to the end, that is, to be with God in His kingdom in Heaven after life.

Hence, in whatever we desire, think, say and do, we do all for the glory of God and souls.

Following now is the continuation of the fourth word of Christ from the Cross (From The Cries of Jesus from the Cross, A Fulton J. Sheen’s Anthology).

2 Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

At the beginning of His public life on the hill of the Beatitudes our Lord preached: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). At the end of His life, on the hill of Calvary, He now practices that poverty of Spirit by His fourth word from the Cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Both the beatitude and the word are foreign to the spirit of the world. Modern society is what might be characterized as acquisitive, for its primary concern is to acquire, to own, to possess; its aristocracy is not one of blood or of virtue, but of money; it judges worth not by righteousness but in terms of possessions.

Our Blessed Lord came into the world to destroy this acquisitiveness and this subservience of moral to economic ends by preaching the blessedness of the poor in Spirit. It is worth noting immediately that “the poor in spirit” does not necessarily mean the indigent or those in straitened circumstances of life; “Poor in spirit” means interior detachment and, as such, includes even some who are rich in the world’s goods, for detachment can be practiced by the rich just as avarice can be practiced by the poor.

The poor in spirit are those who are so detached from wealth, from social position, and from earthly knowledge that, at the moment the kingdom of God demands a sacrifice, they are prepared to surrender all.

The beatitude means then: Blessed are those who are not possessed by their possessions; blessed are they who, whether or not they are poor in fact, are poor in their inmost spirit.

Detachment from what one has (economic pride); what one is (social pride); and what one knows (intellectual pride)

Our Lord not only preached poverty of spirit; He also lived it, and He lived it in such a way as to conquer the three kinds of pride: the pride of what one has, which is economic pride; the pride of what one is, which is social pride; and the pride of what one knows, which is intellectual pride.

Piece of Holy Land

First of all, to counteract the wild exaltation of the economic, the pursuit of wealth as the noblest end of man, and the glorying in what one has, Christ became economically poor. He chose His Mother from the poorer classes who could afford to offer only doves in the Temple, and His foster father from the village tradesmen; and He who owned the earth and the fullness thereof, chose for His birthplace a deserted shepherd’s cave.

He was poor in His mission as He explained at Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, wherefore he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor” (Luke 4:18). He was poor in His public life: “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matt. 8:20).

He was poor in the eyes of government, for when asked to pay the tax, He had no money. He was poor in His death, for He was stripped of His garments — the last remnant of earthly possessions; He was executed on a Cross erected at public expense and was buried in a stranger’s grave.

Thus did He atone for those who are proud of what they have, by having nothing and becoming the universal poor man of the world. He who was rich became poor for our sakes so that we might be rich, and He is, therefore, the only one in all history of whom both the rich and poor can say: “He came from our ranks. He is one of our own.”

Reparation had to be made not only for the pride of wealth but also for the snobbery and pride of social position. The world is full of those who, either through the accident of birth or circumstance, count themselves better than their fellow men and who glory in what they are.

These, too, Christ atoned for, not only by veiling the glory of His Godhead under human form but also by the most poignant social abandonment. The very beginning of His life bears the record: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11). Cities abandoned Him; Bethlehem refused Him an inn; Nazareth drove Him from its gates, and Jerusalem stoned Him.

Truly indeed He could say: “A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and in his own house, and among his own kindred” (Mark 6:4). Men abandoned Him. Some of His disciples, hearing Him say He would give Himself humbly under the form of Bread said: “This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” And they walked with Him no more (John 6:61, 67).

Teachers of the Law abandoned Him, calling Him “a glutton, a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners” (Matt. 11:19). The needy abandoned Him and drew from Him the sweet complaint: “You will not come to me that you may have life” (John 5:40).

St Josemaria Institute

One of His apostles abandoned Him for thirty pieces of silver, one for shame at the word of a maidservant, and three for sleep. Even those whom He helped abandoned Him: “Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger” (Luke 17:17–18).

And now, at the end of His life, the Roman governor could say: “Thy own nation . . . has delivered thee up to me” (John 18:35). Thus did He who is King of Kings become socially poor and an outcast from the snobs of the earth, in order that, through that abandonment, we might become — let us pause at the very thought of it — children of God!

Finally, He atoned for the intellectually proud, for all those who think they know, and who rely on the sufficiency of human knowledge without faith, by becoming spiritually poor.

Bible Art

During His public life, He rejoiced that the sublime truths of the kingdom of heaven were given only to the humble: “I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones” (Matt. 11:25).

The night of His agony in the garden, when that atonement for pride began in all horror, He described His soul as “sorrowful unto death” (see Matt. 26:38); and now on the Cross He lives the beatitude of the poor in spirit by proclaiming the last and greatest poverty of all — the spiritual poverty of seeming abandonment by God: “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” 

Even the sun at midday hid its light as a symbol of the spiritual desolation of His soul. The Father had not really abandoned Him, but Our Lord restrained His divinity from mitigating even with one drop of consolation the bitterness of His chalice.

The cry was one of abandonment, not one of despair. A soul that despairs never cries to God. Just as the keenest pangs of hunger are felt not by the dying man who is completely exhausted, but by the man battling for his life with the last ounce of strength, so abandonment is felt not by the ungodly and unholy, but by the most holy of men, Our Lord on the Cross.

This was the hardest reparation of all. It was not difficult to be economically poor; it was not so difficult to be socially poor and stripped of His friends; but it was hard to surrender divine consolation in a moment of agony to atone for the self-wise, the intelligentsia, and the conceited, who refuse to bow their heads to the wisdom of God, for the atheists who live without God, and for the communists who blot His name from the land of the living.

This word from the Cross was a revelation of how much mental agony there must be in the world in those minds and souls and hearts who are without God.

He knew at that one moment what it was to be without God! He knew something of the loneliness of godlessness and something of the misery of communism, for it was the one moment in which He suffered the desolation of both, that we might have the consolation of never being without Him. By feeling without God, He redeemed those who live without Him.

Behold the Poor Man: economically poor because stripped of garments; socially poor because deserted by friends; spiritually poor because abandoned by God. From that day to this, then: Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the economically poor in spirit, for by desiring nothing, they possess all, even the mansions of the Father’s house.

Some years ago, when the Cloister of a Carmelite convent was broken by a cardinal and opened to the public, a good Carmelite nun was showing a visiting priest through the convent. From the roof of it, one could look over a valley, and on to an opposite hill, where there stood a large and beautiful home that seemed to stand as a symbol for all that was sweet and beautiful and lovely in life.

Recalling the economic poverty of this poor nun, the visitor said to her, “Sister, just suppose that before you entered Carmel, you could have lived in that home. Suppose that you could have had all the wealth, refinement, and opportunities for worldly enjoyment that such a home would give you. Would you have left that house to have become a poor Carmelite?” And she answered, “Father that is my house!”

Blessed also are the poor in spirit socially. Blessed are they who know of only one aristocracy — the bluebloods born at the baptismal font and the royalty of the King of Kings. 

There is going to be a tremendous transformation of social position at the last day, for God is no respecter of persons. Our social position in the Kingdom of God will depend not on our human popularity of propaganda, but only on those things we carry with us in the shipwreck of the world — a clear conscience and the love of God.

The world has little use for either; that is why Our Lord warned us that a full-hearted love of Him would draw down the world’s hatred: “Yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth a service to God. And these things will they do to you because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things I have told you, that when the hour shall come, you may remember that I told you of them” (John 16:2–4).

How completely His point of view reverses that of the world’s estimate of position is evidenced in those equally striking words: “Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Be glad in that day and rejoice; for behold, your reward is great in heaven” (Luke 6:22–23).

Blessed, finally, are the poor in spirit intellectually. Blessed are the humble, and the teachable who, like the shepherds, know that they know nothing, or like the Wise Men, who know that they do not know everything. Faith in God, faith in prayer, hope in Christ, devotion to Our Blessed Mother, belief in the Eucharist and in infallibility — all this may seem foolish to the self-wise, but “the foolishness of God is wiser than men” (1 Cor. 1:25).

Personally, we feel that if our eternal salvation were conditioned upon saving either one hundred corrupt men and women of the streets like Magdalen and Zacchaeus or converting one proud university professor who felt his tiny mind had solved all the riddles of the universe, we should choose to go out and convert the hundred.

And there is a divine warrant for the choice, for Our Lord said to those who thought themselves wise: “Amen, I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you” (Matt. 21:31).

Why, then, are we proud? Why do we set all the energies of life on becoming rich: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matt. 16:26).

Why do we seek social prestige and seek out the first places at tables? The divine injunction is just the contrary: “When thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place; that when he who invited thee cometh, he may say to thee: Friend, go up higher. . . . Because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:10–11).

Why are we proud? Whom in all the world could we find to love us in poverty, in friendless abandonment, and in ignorance, other than Our Lord. In the beautiful words of Francis Thompson:

“Strange, piteous, futile thing!

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I make much of naught.” (He said),

“And human love needs human meriting:

How hast thou merited —

Of all man’s clotted clay, the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, 

Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take,

Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child’s mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

Rise, clasp My hand, and come.”(10 “The Hound of Heaven,” lines 161–175).

(11 Ibid., line 179).

If, then, we are called to be poor economically, poor socially, and poor intellectually, let us rejoice in the hope that for us is reserved the kingdom of heaven, and for the present, see in our fleeting poverty “the shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly.”11

— The Cross and the Beatitudes

My take from the above is:  the consequences of poverty of spirit are wealth shared with those in need; social influence used to serve the needs of others; knowledge that is charity in order to edify others.  In the final end what you and I are and have are not ours to own and to use only for ourselves but ought to be used in the service of God and others.  You and I are stewards of the gifts and talents of God.

As always let us talk to Jesus about the above truths in the quiet moments of our conversation with Him and listen intently to what He says during those moments or any time during the day and night that He chooses to communicate with us.  He breathes when He wills. Our attitude is “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”  Do whatever He tells you and me.

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,                    

Guadalupinky