Spiritual DisciplinesSample

Day 5 - The Discipline of Simplicity

Simplicity is the uplifting of your soul that prevents you from an exaggerated care for yourself. Such simplicity is a true treasure.

Pay attention! We have to be careful not to confuse the practice of the spiritual discipline of simplicity with an ascetic life! While asceticism is marked by a lack of things, simplicity knows gratefulness, both when lacking and when in abundance.

Practicing the discipline of simplicity helps us relate to our belongings in a correct way. It helps us enjoy them without being destroyed by them.

The person that practices biblical simplicity is protected by the extremity of obsessive accumulation of treasures, on the one side, and from poverty seen as an imposed way of purifying the soul, on the other side.

The spiritual discipline of simplicity represents an inner reality that is reflected in an exterior way of life. This inner reality involves a life of undisturbed joy by the concern of having and possessing. You can be free whether you have or whether you don’t.

In other words, the discipline of simplicity does not depend on your wealth or your poverty, but it has to do with your attitude towards what you have.

We have to say that simplicity seen from the exterior differs from one person to the other, depending on their social status, the urban or rural environment of where he lives, the country he lives in, his age, culture, and so on. We cannot be dogmatic when we talk about the exterior expression of simplicity without becoming legalistic.

Simplicity does now draw attention to itself. It helps you enjoy the possessions you have without being in the center of attention, and it teaches you that happiness does not depend on them.