Per Ipsum

 Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. While she is aware many saints sought actual poverty, Leseur says, "This is not my vocation." As the wife of an upper middle class professional, and one with severe illness, she wasn't free to choose it. There is nothing in the essay about solidarity with the poor or any particular insight into actual poverty. She does say that as far as is compatible with her "state in life" she will practice "a little poverty," by which she seems to mean certain self imposed penances. The insight here is not profound. She distinguishes between Poverty of Spirit, which she defines as detachment from all that is purely human, and Poverty of Heart, which she defines as cutting oneself off from every attachment that cannot last eternity. Leseur addresses poverty of spirit sharply, but it bleeds into her previous writings on renunciation, detachment, and humility. There are no new insights, and it ...

When I faced burnout in May and gave myself the summer off from all my writer blogs, I didn't intend to include this one. Alas, it too fell by the wayside. A quick review of Leseurs sixth and seventh monthly resolution, however, makes me suspect I also ducked them. Neither was any more difficult for the soul than, say, humility, but they were both rather mushy concepts and hard to wrap straight forward words around. The sixth month? "To meditate on, serve, and love our crucified Savior." I actually did focus on the sorrowful mysteries that month, and work at this one. I just had nothing to say about it The seventh month is "Detachment of soul." I wasn't seeing how this differs from many of her other ones. It is yet another way of saying "I must decrease and He must increase." That brings me to last month's resolution, Obedience. Leseur resolves to practice it first of all and most obviously toward God. She goes on to say her body ought t...