Modern-day Minimalists

Understanding how less earth means more heaven

08/11/2017

Matthew 16:24-28 Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory, and then he will repay each according to his conduct. Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom."

           Have you heard of a new movement called “minimalism”? As the word “minimalism” suggest, it’s an attitude that believes “less is more.” Minimalists deliberately try to reduce clutter and complexity in their lives by not having a car, or by eliminating the internet, or living in a much smaller home. I recently heard of a priest in Vermont, Fr. Peter Williams, who built a home that was only 160 sq.ft. But Fr. Williams admitted that “you need a really big truck to pull the tiny house” (Catholic News Service, May 8, 2017). So, being a modern-day minimalist is not so easy.

             But there is something admirable about minimalism: when you reduce material things out of your life, you create more room for spiritual things. The transcendental philosopher, Henry David Thoreau, wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Walden, 143). Put simply (which minimalists would appreciate), less is more.

Today (August 11) is the feast day of St. Clara, and she shows us that the spirit of minimalism is not really new at all, but rather something very old. Clara – sometimes pronounced Claire – was born in Assisi, on July 16, 1194. She came from a wealthy Italian family – meaning she had a lot of expensive stuff – but one day she heard St. Francis preach about the joys of poverty during Lent in the church of St. George. After the sermon, she asked him to help her to live more according to the gospel ideal of poverty. On Palm Sunday, in 1212, Clara left her home and met Francis at the chapel called the Portiuncula, and there Francis cut off her hair, and put a veil on her head, and she exchanged her rich robes for a simple gown. St. Clara was a minimalist before it was cool to be a minimalist!

              But Francis wasn’t really teaching Clara about minimalism, but rather about an evangelical counsel called “poverty.” Together with chastity and obedience, poverty makes up a kind of “holy trinity” of the saintly virtues of those who long to be completely conformed to Christ. They want to leave everything behind: pleasures, power and possessions. St. Francis taught Clara that less materially is more spiritually.

               Folks, we don’t need to become minimalists and get rid of our cars and computers. And not everyone is called to enter a convent like St. Clara. Nevertheless, we must all embrace the virtue of poverty and learn to live with less, and that’s especially hard in our consumerist and materialists culture that preaches: the more you possess the happier you will be. Here are a few tips you might try to embrace the spirit of poverty. Whenever you get something new, give something old away. If you get a new shirt, give an old shirt away to the poor; if you get a new book, give an old book away to someone else. Practice portion control when you eat meals. What you cannot eat, save for lunch the next day. By the way, someone told me recently that losing weight is 80% about what you eat, and only 20% about exercise. So, less exercise means more weight loss! Reduce your dependency on social media like checking Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, and have a conversation with someone face to face instead. Incidentally, there is no app for that. Try to see fewer movies and don’t binge watch T.V. programs like “Game of Thrones.” Go for a walk in the woods instead. When there’s less clutter in your life there’s more room for Christianity, which is what St. Clara believed, and what she left behind.

              Listen to Thoreau’s words again: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see, if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover I had not lived.” Modern-day minimalists attempt to live more fully by living more simply. But no one lives as fully as the saints, who embrace the evangelical counsel of gospel poverty, for whom less of earth means more of heaven.

Praised be Jesus Christ!