Morning Prayer Reflection: To What Are We Attached?

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. Philippians 3:7-9

Let me begin by saying that not all of us are called to a life of voluntary material poverty. I say this first because I believe that the extremity of such a view often keeps us from embracing the kind of poverty we are called to share. St. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, is talking not only of his material wealth, but also of his spiritual mindframe, his very framework of life. St. Clare, whose memorial it is today, expressed that desire to have nothing but Christ in emulation of St. Francis, which was to take on material poverty. However, the call each of us has is to detach ourselves from those things that keep us away from Christ - to be poor in spirit, realizing that any and all wealth, material and spiritual, comes from Jesus alone.

Surrounded by a culture where less is hardly ever more, what is it that we are so attached to? Is there anything we possess that we feel we could not live without? If we were asked to do so, would it undermine our faith? Pray today to be released from all but the power of Christ, so that we, like St. Paul and St. Clare, may desire no gain, no good, but that of our Lord Jesus.

Come, Lord Jesus, come!