MASTERS OF NOTHING

"I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me". (Luke 14,18).

We must remember that all we possess is a gift. The first Beatitude is one of poverty, and only if we live according to this Beatitude we can enter into the kingdom of God.

First, there is the very clear fact that we possess nothing which we can keep, whether we want to or not; it is the discovery that I am nothing and I have nothing - total irremediable, hopeless poverty. We exist because we have been willed into existence and brought into existence. We have done nothing for it, it was not an act of our free will.  We do not possess life in a such way that it is impossible for anyone to take it away from us, and all that we are and all we possess is ephemeral in this way. We have a body - it will die. We have a mind - yet it is enough for one minute vessel to burst in a brain for the greatest mind to be suddenly extinguished. We have a heart, sensitive an alive - and yet a moment comes when we would like to pour out all our sympathy, all our understanding for someone who is  in need, and at that moment there is nothing but a stone in our breast. So, in a way, we can say that we possess nothing because we are masters of nothing which is in our possession.

There is a  second aspect of the first Beatitude. We a rich, and everything which we possess is a gift and a sign of the love of God and the love of men, is a continuous gift of divine  love;  and as long as we possess nothing,  divine love is manifested continuously and fully. But everything we take into own hands to possess is taken out of the realm of love.. Certainly it becomes ours, but love is lost. Nothing can be stored - nothing except the kingdom of  God itself. Have you noticed that to be rich always means an impoverishment on another level? It is enough for you to say "I have this watch, it is mine", and close your hand on it, to be in possession of a watch and to have lost a hand. And if you close your mind on your riches, if you close your heart so that you can keep what is in it safe, never to lose it, then it becomes as small as the thing on which you have closed yourself in. (Bishop and surgeon Anthony Bloom, School of prayer).

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