Emphasis Preaching Journal

Saint Bernard of Clarivaux, who gave us the hymn, "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," also left us this gem: "No one should praise poverty but one who is poor."

It is clear from this text that the Scriptures do not praise poverty for its own sake. There is nothing particularly virtuous about poverty in and of itself. Here we have another one of those New Testament pictures of a kind of socialism, "from each according to their ability and to each according to their need." Equality is the key word.