All the laity who are members of the Council of Administration or of the Temporal Council, or have responsibility for the various associations arising from the apostolic activities of the brothers and the sisters of the Community, met for an annual retreat on the seventh and eighth of November, 1992, at Rimont. Three conferences punctuated these days. In the first two, Father Philippe reminded us that it is the beatitude of the poor upon which the Heavenly Jerusalem is built. The third emphasized the essential place of this poverty in the vocation of the Community of Saint John, and is reprinted below :

If we try to understand Christ's current look upon today's Church--a look which, I believe, is that of the Holy Father--it appears that today's Church is going through and will go through a very strong storm, what one calls a crisis. There have been seven atheistic ideologies that I believe to be, in the Johannine language of the First Letter, the antichrists. In our imagination, we immediately see the antichrists as people, but I wonder, in fact, whether the antichrists are not much more the atheistic ideologies. Look at the Ancients: their idols were of stone, of wood, idols from our physical world. Thus the Sun was worshipped. All these idols have today become interior idols. Everyone agrees on this. Isn't it the same thing for the Antichrist? For the antichrists? Personally, I believe that these ideologies are the demonic antitheses of the evangelical beatitudes.
The atheistic ideologies "arise from among us." They arose 150 years ago. It is a completely new phenomenon in the history of thought, in the history of philosophy.

If one studies them from a philosophical point of view, they can only be understood in a Christian context; this is why they do not exist in India. Christianity has developed man in a unique way. Through Christ man is called to holiness, to a divine holiness, as a child of God. He is really a child of God, an adoptive child. But let us clearly understand: this adoption is not at all extrinsic. We say "adoptive" because we do not have any other word to show the difference between the mystery of the Most Blessed Trinity and that of the Mystical Body. Through Jesus we understand that this adoption is real, that the Mystical Body is developed in the Most Blessed Trinity, and that we are called to live a Trinitarian life through faith, hope, and charity. Christianity gives a leaven which enables the human dough know an exaltation. Think about dough without leaven and dough with leaven, and try to understand the transformation which man undergoes with this evangelical leaven. It is something extraordinary. Besides, it makes us lose our head a bit. This is already what was said about the apostles at Pentecost:"The are crazy; they are already drunk" (cf. Acts 2:12, 15). This was the leaven and so it remains. This is seen very clearly among the charismatics.

Here we are charismatic in another way. You know quite well that the first charism is the "sermo sapientiae"--the "expression of wisdom" (1 Cor. 12:8)--don't forget. And it is not without good reason that, in the Congregation, we place the three wisdoms at the forefront, immediately. Now the "sermo sapientiae" is needed in order to transmit them. The charism of the Community is to transmit wisdom to a world which no longer believes in it. When the Pope came to Fribourg a few years ago, a student asked him, "Most Holy Father, why do we have good professors here but there are no teachers? We have good, competent professors; we have computers and well-organized files, but we do not have any teachers." And the Holy Father replied, "Science gives competence. You have good professors who are scientists. In order to be a teacher, one must be wise; contemplation is necessary, since wisdom--as Saint Thomas says--is the "habitus contemplativus." Wisdom puts us in a state of contemplation, certainly not always in act, but in the state of one who wants to look at everything in the light of Wisdom." That was a magnificent response.

Now three years after this visit by the Pope, I read in this same university's review that wisdom is a surpassing of science. But nothing is specified by saying this. It would have been better to say that wisdom is man who uses science yet who understands that this science, in the "technical" sense, does not suffice today, and that it has never sufficed. One must enter into a relation with the one who is our God; one must understand that man is made for this. A man is only truly a man when he truly has a relation with God. Otherwise he remains an orphan and he has the mentality of an orphan, all the feverishness of an orphan. And orphans--as we indeed know--when they do not know from where they come, who their parents were, at the age of twenty begin to search for their parents with anxiety, with frenzy because they want to know who they are. Their demand for wisdom is then no longer satisfied by the pedagogues. They want to know what the source is. As long as man does not discover where is the source of his intelligence, of his heart, he remains feverish: it is a poverty badly lived.

This is what one sees in the various forms of atheism. These are a badly-lived poverty which engenders exaltation--of the type, "Oh, those poor people who still believe in God"!--or indeed its contrary, anguish. In both cases one is an orphan, and one no longer knows where one is going. Our world of today no longer knows where it is going. It is in an extreme situation; one is in an extreme situation when one no longer sees the finality. It confuses authority and power; it confuses truth and sincerity; it confuses wisdom and science.

Thus to define wisdom as something beyond science amounts to saying that while your professors give you science, it is up to you to find wisdom. True, wisdom is personal since it is contemplative, but be careful! The human intelligence demands wisdom and wisdom assumes science; wisdom does not reject science, nor does the former deny the latter, moreover: wisdom assumes science. A true science which must be taught under a human aspect must constantly recall this opening towards wisdom and the fact that philosophy is there in order to help us humanly discover the existence of the First Being, the Creator God. Wisdom is meant to help us discover the Creator. Today we clearly see, when science is asked to discover the Creator, that it no longer knows, it imagines, it imitates.

Wisdom is rejected today: there is no longer room for it. One teaches science; one teaches human science which does not lead to wisdom. One pacifies ones conscience by saying, "Wisdom is not taught, it is a question of feeling." And nevertheless, the ancient Aristotle--a pagan who did not know Revelation--said that wisdom is that which is teachable in the strongest way there is because the teacher then touches the most profound desire of the human intelligence, which is made for wisdom. Wisdom is not a question of feeling but a question of intelligence. Yes, our intelligence is in the first place made for this. As long as our intelligence does not discover wisdom, it is an orphan, it is unhappy.

For us believers, wisdom is given to us in faith: it is Jesus. Jesus who is given to us in faith demands from us this effort of the intelligence, if we can do it, if we has the time for it. And the Community of Saint John is perhaps meant for this: to enable young people to attain wisdom; to show in today's world that wisdom exists at the theological level; to not reduce theology to science as is done almost constantly, even in theological departments. Indeed, theology is almost always turned today into a historical science. One no longer sees that it is a wisdom. It is a wisdom through faith, and it must make use of scientific methods--this is clear--but it cannot stop at their conclusions. It is the same thing for exigetical conclusions; one cannot stop at them because exegesis is at the service of faith and because faith implies a look of wisdom, of contemplation.

This is why the Community of Saint John exists in the Church: in order to show that the human intelligence is made to discover the existence of a First Being which the religious traditions call "God" and to show that the scientific theology of Saint Thomas must blossom in a mystical theology which is at the service of the covenant of love with Christ, the Son who introduces us into His unity with the Father. Philosophical wisdom, theological wisdom, mystical wisdom: everything is accomplished in the secret of our heart, with Jesus (mystical wisdom).

The vocation of the Community of Saint John is to preserve this triple outlook of wisdom. This is difficult because it is not today's agenda! Today's agenda is to be scientific in everything. We must be scientific as well, but with a science which is open to wisdom, which demands contemplation. Our function in the Church--poor from the intelligence's point of view as from the material point of view--is above all to teach these three wisdoms to the people of God, which Martha Robin understood quite well. When I spoke to Martha,--who was a little French country girl--she told me: "Ah, it is beautiful, these three wisdoms. They put everything in order.... This is what the Community of Saint John must do."

We are not the only ones. There are others besides ourselves; this is clear. It would be incredible pride to believe we are the only ones. But what is important to understand is that we are made for this, for holiness, and that holiness demands poverty. This is the first of the beatitudes: to give one's intelligence, an intelligence which cannot accept errors and which seeks truth under the motions of the Holy Spirit, and a philosophical wisdom to precisely locate the point to which science can bring its efforts; to not confuse science and faith; to not confuse science and philosophy. Philosophy is at the service of man. Science is also at the service of man, but not in the same way, not in as direct of way. It is at the service of man, and man is not at the service of science.

It is important to understand, through all this which is elementary, what the poverty of the Community of Saint John must be today. I say this for all of us, for the friends, for the associates, the "Saint Josephs." The twentieth century is the century of intellectual wealth--from the scientific and technical point of view--a wealth so extraordinary that there is a risk of seeing everything explode: "society of consumption," this says it all. But we must not forget that our twentieth century, from its beginning, was in the grip of the crisis of modernism with which it was born. Now we know that this crisis consists in believing that science measures faith. Monod said openly at the International Meetings in Geneva, "Ethics is modified according to the progress of science." This is a strictly psychological point of view. He also affirmed that one educates a child as one trains a little cat; for him there is no difference between the two. This is a veritable blindness. Such an intelligent man from the scientific point of view, and so poor from the human perspective! And one of his followers was named President of the Bioethical Commission! This is where we are in the poverty of the intelligence. It is a terrible poverty because it affects the sapiential intelligence. Our era is marked by an extreme theological sapiential poverty. On the mystical level we do not know it. We have had the Little Flower, Martha, Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, and we have among others Mother Teresa whom I believe is a saint. There are still saints! Mystical theology considers the Holy Spirit; it is a great secret. But we can see acquired wisdom, and we can notice its poverty....

It is not easy to be sent by God into a world which no longer believes in wisdom and which does everything possible so that wisdom might disappear. This even contaminates people in the Church who often place more credence in the human sciences than in philosophy, than in metaphysics.

We live with the poor, and we must live in this Church of the poor that is the post-conciliar Church. We must live every poverty, not only social poverty, but also intellectual poverty and poverty of heart. The poverty of heart of the little children who are on the street, as in Brazil. The poverty of the heart of all the children who are obligated to go to a school where what they are taught kills their heart! And all the propaganda which destroys true love and reduces love to the sexual aspect. This is a terrible poverty! It is the poverty of today's world.

It is necessary that in the midst of this all those who belong to the Community of Saint John understand this poverty, accept to live it, and transform it from the inside by a spirit of poverty. The poverty of John the Baptist. The poverty of Saint Joseph who, of royal lineage, lived in an extreme poverty: not that of a beggar but that of a craftsman with his dignity as having royal blood. The poverty of Jesus. The poverty of Mary who was also of David's race. These were poor having an extraordinary nobility. When those who have intelligence of heart and mind are poor it is something very beautiful. And I would very much want for us all to live this poverty. We are a royal, divine race (cf. 1. Pet. 2:9). We have a unique dignity if we live by these three wisdoms. Those who are in the world cannot devote their time to educating these three wisdoms, but they can live by it by desire and they must do so. I do not ask them to come to the philosophical sessions: although they may if they would like! Wisdom does not have any age! But they must live by these three wisdoms by desire. They are more useful than ever, especially mystical wisdom, silent prayer. We must have this dignity. It is the grace which God gives to us, to all those who are connected with the Community of Saint John: the grace to belong to these three wisdoms.

And we must accept this material poverty and you are the guarantors--both as the Temporal Council and as the Friends of Saint John--of this poverty of Nazareth for us, for the Community. You must constantly remind us that we must live this material poverty in a spirit of contemplation, in Christ's eyes, in Mary's eyes, in Saint Joseph's eyes, by understanding that there is a nobility in poverty.

We should discover this nobility in the spirit of poverty in order to live by this poverty. We might not have all the modern tools at our disposal, but we have the desire to listen, to know, and to recall human wisdom, divine wisdom, not separating ourselves from our century, from this poverty of our century, and avoiding entering into those ideologies which exalt efficiency for efficiency's sake, progress for progress' sake. We make use of progress, this is indeed clear: but we must use it divinely so that everything may be placed in God's hands; one must not live by it in feverishness but in a total confidence in God's Providence. Sometimes it will test us, it will make us experience a true material poverty so that our faith and our hope may progress and that we continue with a magnanimous soul. This is what it is to be royal: to not stop as though we had been conquered in advance.

The policy of the poor is not a defeatist policy. Not at all! We build for God until the end. We must live in this light. To live in this light is to not lose a minute of the time which is given to us because, if we knew that we only had eight hours left to live on earth, do you think that we would keep things in reserve? Not at all! We would continue to live fully, totally, until the end. This is the spirit of poverty. It is this total abandonment to Providence, in the prudence and in the light of Christ's return.
And our "Saint Josephs" have the charism of this prudence, but enlightened by faith and under the motions of the Holy Spirit, of the gift on counsel. It is not a closed confidence. No. It is a confidence in Providence which consists in being ready because we know that God is there, we know that Christ is there, we know that Mary is there. To live in this poverty is very great and this requires a royal magnanimity. Be like Saint Joseph, of royal lineage, in your heart, in your intelligence, and in this mutual confidence. Your brothers, your sisters in the Community of Saint John are poor, beggars from every point of view, but they desire to live by the three wisdoms. They thirst to live by it. You can always remind them of this when you see that they do not live by it. In poverty meetings are much more direct because all the worldly, conventional aspect disappears. The great advantage of the poor is that they are not conventional. We must be the true poor who live in this magnanimity and in this complete confidence to attain sanctity, to have this divine ambition for the three wisdoms in a world which no longer believes in them.

The Holy Father has confirmed this; this is enough for us.