Poverty and divine worship

The Work has three other characteristics: joy, love for work and love for poverty. We shall give God the best. We shall put so much effort and attention into caring for divine worship (which we normally hold in small oratories) that it will be impossible for us ever to offer him the sacrifice of Cain. As I have told you before, only when a man gives the woman he loves a sack of cement and three iron bars as a sign of his affection will we do the same to Our Lord, who is in heaven and in our tabernacles.

Poverty is not destitution

My children, our poverty should not be a kind of ostentatious destitution. It is always hidden behind a smile, our personal cleanliness, the cleanliness of our clothes, and above all, the cleanliness of our soul. Hence we do not expect any praise in this life; but we never forget the words of St Matthew: Pater tuus, qui videt in abscondito, reddet tibi.³⁰

Supernatural spirit

That is why we must always do what is natural, in man, with a supernatural sense. That is why we will be able to make the things of the earth divine. That is why it is not a sacrifice for us to accept our vocation: it is not a sacrifice, because we know that it is a proof of a choice and of love: redemi te, et vocavi te nomine tuo, meus es tu.³¹