Because we never lay hold of our nothingness before God, and consequently, we never enter into the deepest reality of our relationship with Him. But when we accept ownership of our powerlessness and helplessness, when we acknowledge that we are paupers at the door of God’s mercy, then God can make something beautiful out of us. This poverty of spirit is the second major characteristic of saved sinners with tilted halos living by grace. What is the person canonized by Jesus in the first beatitude (“Blessed are those who know that they are poor”) really like?
