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 Passing
from the cloistered environment of the rich Portuguese monasteries
to the "vast cloister of the world," Anthony completely
embraced the poverty of the Minorites. He experienced the
trusting abandon in the hands of Providence when he departed
for Africa with only his cassock, without money, in total human
uncertainty and total certainty of assistance from the heavenly
Father.
(Just
a few years later, while Francis was still alive, Pope Honorius
III authorised the missionary Minorites in Morocco to use money,
to wear the local clothes, to discontinue tonsure and to grow
beards!). With poverty as his only wealth, Anthony travelled
up Italy as far as Assisi and then retreated in Montepaolo.
Anthony,
in his Sermons, becomes the chorister of poverty, "Oh
poverty, your delights offer a taste of eternal sweetness to
those who love you."
Like
Francis, Anthony found cause to love poverty in the fact that
Jesus Christ first had been poor. He writes, "In
Christ were poverty, obedience and humility... The blessed
Virgin, giving birth to the Son of God, wrapped him in the
cloth of golden poverty. How fine is the gold of poverty!
He who does not possess it, even if he has all the wealth
of the world, has nothing... On the earth of poverty, humility
and lowliness grows the love of the divine Majesty...."
Like
Francis, Anthony wants to live poverty with joy, "There
is joy in poverty... True poverty is always happy... Happy
and voluntary poverty gives strength...."
To
the love of poverty and the poor, which his Franciscan
family transmitted to him, Anthony adds his own fiery defence
of the poor (who he calls "the poor of Christ"
and "the brothers of poor Christ") against the
tyrannical, usurers and rich exploiters. The author of
the Life Before Anthony writes, "He saw to the return
of anything taken away through usury or with violence. It
got to the point that, the price of mortgaged houses and lands
was presented to him and, based on his advice, that which
had been taken was restored by reimbursing the value or asking
for remission." Brother John de la Rochelle, a
Minor Monk who died in 1245, attests, "Never in our
day had we heard such a sweet consoler of the poor and such
a bitter accuser of the powerful."
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