How to avoid the rich man’s fate

How to Avoid the Rich Man’s Fate

Pride can exist only in those who believe that they possess something. The fallen angel and the first man became proud and fell only because they imagined and believed that they possessed something. For neither angel nor man nor anything else has being; only one has it, God.

Humility exists only in those who are poor enough to see that they possess nothing of their own. In every case when God permits evil to happen, he makes it benefit the growth in being of those who are good. For this reason he saw to it that his Son—who possessed being more than one can say—became more poor than any saint or any person had ever been. He saw to it that he became so poor that it was as if he had no being, but it seemed thus only to sinners who were deprived of the true light; to those with understanding it did not—and does not—seem thus.

This truth is so profound—namely, the truth about the virtue of poverty, how it is the root and mother of humility and every good—this is so profound that it ­cannot be written about. Whoever possessed this ­virtue could never fall into ruin and deception. They could never retain anything for themselves, and would also perceive how God loved true poverty.

Saint Angela of Foligno