Jane DeRose-Bamman, OFS
National Minister

Jane DeRose-Bamman
National Minister

Do you have any possessions that you cannot live without? Anything? A few years after I professed, one of our sisters shared that during formation, the director asked her what can’t she live without?  She thought about it and replied: “the washing machine.” She had a large family. The washing machine was truly a necessity.

I have many possessions. As much as I try to avoid it – stuff accumulates. Thinking about my many possessions, I realize I could live without almost all of them. Sure, I like a comfortable bed and a telephone/handheld computer. But I could survive without them.

The things I have aren’t bad. It’s my attitude about them. OFS Rule Article 11 reminds us that Jesus valued created things. However, in Matthew 6:19-20, Jesus warned those who were present at the Serman on the Mount to “…not store up for yourselves treasures on earth…But store up treasures in heaven…” (Matt 6:19-20) My possessions at times have provided distractions from keeping my eyes on Jesus. The OFS Rule gives a simple recipe for changing that.

We are invited to seek a p roper spirit of detachment from temporal goods by simplifying our own material needs. We can have stuff – but what is driving us to accumulate all that stuff and are the goods distracting us? I like to think about it as: Do we possess our possessions or do our possessions possess us?  Detachment steers us in the right direction – simplifying our needs and focusing on sharing. Such a freeing concept.

It can be challenging to resist the cultural trends – the tendency and yearning for possession and power. I want to do the will of God. Therefore, the only trends I need to keep up with is to draw closer to Jesus and use my God-given talents and goods for the benefit of others.

I must practice this daily as possessions accumulate without me realizing it. I start treating my possessions as the only treasures that matter. Wrong attitude. “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” Matthew 6:21 My summer project is to find new homes for the things I can live without and spend more time working on my heavenly treasure chest. What about you?

OFS Rule Article 11:

Trusting in the Father, Christ chose for himself and his mother a poor and humble life, even though he valued created things attentively and lovingly. Let the Secular Franciscans seek a proper spirit of detachment from temporal goods by simplifying their own material needs. Let them be mindful that according to the gospel they are stewards of the goods received for the benefit of God’s children. Thus, in the spirit of “the Beatitudes”, and as pilgrims and strangers on their way to the home of the Father, they should strive to purify their hearts from every tendency and yearning for possession and power.