[The poor] are the ones who have nothing to prove or to protect – no posing, no posturing before people or before God. When all you’ve got is all you’ve got, all that’s left is to be yourself and you can only receive. And that, in a sense, is why the poor are blessed, because they know what really matters.
– from the Introduction to Mother Teresa: A Simple Path, p. 31
I don’t think that being poor automatically means that you “know what really matters”. I’m sure most of the poor want all the wealth and power they don’t have. But I do agree that “when all you’ve got is all you’ve got, all that’s left is to be yourself”. Poverty is no ticket to heaven.
@anyushka Yes, you’re right. I guess what the author of the quote was trying to say is that ideally this is what the poor, given their situation, should realise: “I have nothing and nowhere else to go; I am completely and utterly dependent on God; that is enough and that is all that matters.” Even those who are rich, but who’ve come to a point where their riches mean nothing (e.g., incurable sickness) also make or ought to make this realization.