Quotes With Meaning
Leave everything and follow me,' Christ is sup- posed to have said; the commandment is infinite, it demands a new humanity. Enigmatic and naked. It sweeps away the grandeurs of the world. One kind of poverty destroys, another exalts. There is a great mystery in that: to love the poor means to love baneful poverty, to stop despising it. It means to love mankind. For man is poor. Irremediably. We are poverty, buffeted between desire and disgust.
Leave everything and follow me,' Christ is sup- posed to have said; the commandment is infinite, it demands a new humanity. Enigmatic and naked. It sweeps away the grandeurs of the world. One kind of poverty destroys, another exalts. There is a great mystery in that: to love the poor means to love baneful poverty, to stop despising it. It means to love mankind. For man is poor. Irremediably. We are poverty, buffeted between desire and disgust.
This quote emphasizes the profound challenge of truly following Christ's call to abandon worldly attachments in favor of a deeper connection with humanity, particularly the poor. It recognizes that while poverty can destroy, there is a transformative aspect to embracing it—an understanding that loving those in need means accepting their struggles without disdain. Vuillard suggests that to love mankind fully requires acknowledging our shared human condition of poverty, both in material and emotional senses. This reflects a mindset shift from viewing poverty as a curse to seeing it as a shared experience that connects us all. Ultimately, it calls for a new humanity that is not ashamed of its vulnerabilities but sees value in solidarity and empathy.