The Poor Imagination: A Psychology of Dispossession in Three Admonitions of Francis of Assisi
David B. Couturier, OFM. Cap.
Introduction
I would like to begin with a question that is simple enough to be memorized by a child and dangerous enough to unsettle a nation: Who is my neighbor?
It is the question at the core of the Scriptures. It is the question at the heart of Franciscan life. And it is one of the key questions underlying our politics, social conflicts, economic systems, pastoral failures, and spiritual lives.
We often assume that our moral disagreements begin with policies, doctrines, strategies, or principles. But before we decide what should be done, something more fundamental has already happened. We have already imagined the other person in a certain way. We have already placed that person inside or outside the circle of our concern. We have already decided, often unconsciously, whether this person is brother, sister, burden, threat, rival, stranger, case, sinner, or Christ.
This is why the question of the neighbor is primarily a question of moral imagination. Moral imagination poses an initial question before ethical decision-making begins. It doesn't start with, “What should we do?” but with, “How are we seeing?”
That question matters because two people can look at the same situation and see completely different worlds. One notices a migrant and perceives danger. Another sees a legal case. Another sees a neighbor. And still another sees injustice or inconvenience. Yet another sees Christ.
For a few moments, inspired by Jay’s wonderful presentation, I want to talk about what I call the poor imagination. By “poor imagination,” I don’t mean an imagination that is weak, thin, or lacking. I mean an imagination made poor in the Franciscan sense: dispossessed, humbled, freed from the need to dominate, classify, possess, control, or defend the self at all costs.
The poor imagination belongs to those who no longer need to own the world to love it. It is the imagination of someone who can accept the neighbor without first reducing them to a category. It is the imagination of someone who can ask, “Who is my neighbor?” without secretly wondering, “How will this person threaten, inconvenience, expose, or diminish me?”
To develop this theme, I want to focus on three of Francis’ Admonitions.
Building on Jay Hammond’s reading, we can see the Admonitions not just as a collection of moral sayings, but as a grammar of perception. They are not simply texts to analyze. They are exercises to experience. They train the eye. They shape desire. They form the heart. They ask not only, “What do you know?” but “What do you see?” and “What is your seeing making you become?”
For the sake of time, I will focus on three Admonitions: Admonition 1: seeing Christ; Admonition 14: becoming poor in spirit; Admonition 24: loving the one who cannot satisfy.
Together, these three Admonitions give us a concentrated psychology of dispossession.
Admonition 1: Seeing Christ
Francis begins the Admonitions not with poverty, not with penance, not with fraternity, and not even directly with the leper. As Jay has noted, he begins with the Body of the Lord.
Admonition 1 is about the Eucharist, but it is also about perception. The Father dwells in inaccessible light. The Son reveals the Father. The Spirit enables us to see the Son. Some look and see bread; others look and see Christ.
Jay puts the matter sharply: this is not about eyesight; it is about capacity. Two people can look at the same reality and see different things. Some see bread. Some see Christ. Belief is a mode of perception.
This is the first lesson about the poor imagination: the deepest moral problem isn't always that Christ is absent. Sometimes, the deeper issue is that Christ is present and we can't see Him.
We are looking, but we are not seeing. We are in proximity, but not in communion. This has everything to do with the neighbor. The neighbor is often hidden in plain sight. So are the poor before us, yet unseen. So are the wounded. The person we fear, resent, dismiss, pity, or manage may be standing directly in front of us, and still we fail to see them truthfully. Francis’ Eucharistic perception is also about social and moral perception.
If I can look at the Eucharist and see only bread, I can look at the poor and see only failure. I can look at the migrant and see only threat. I can look at the prisoner and see only crime. I can look at the disabled person and see only limitation. I can look at the political opponent and see only danger. I can look at the brother who irritates me and see only inconvenience. I can look at the leper and see only disgust.
The question is not merely, “What is before me?” The question is, “What am I capable of seeing?” This is why Francis asks, in effect: How long will you be hard of heart?
Hardness of heart is not simply ignorance. It is resistance to formation. It is the refusal to let reality become a gift. It is the refusal to let Christ appear where I do not expect him.
The leper was there, but Francis had not seen him as a brother. He had seen disease, danger, contamination, social distance, and disgust. The leper stood before him, but not yet as neighbor.
Then grace changed his perception. What had been bitter became sweet. It begins when the person I had reduced to a category becomes a presence. It begins when the one I had avoided becomes brother or sister. The poor imagination starts with the conversion of sight.
Admonition 14: Becoming Poor in Spirit
The second Admonition is Admonition 14, on poverty of spirit, and begins with the Beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
Francis immediately unsettles our expectations. He says, in effect, that many people pray, fast, abstain, and discipline the body. They do visibly religious things. Yet they are easily disturbed by the words and deeds of others. This is Francis at his most psychologically acute.
He is saying that poverty of spirit is not proven when I am in control. It is not proven when I am admired. It is not proven when others agree with me. It is not proven when my spiritual practices are intact, and my reputation is secure.
Poverty of spirit is revealed when something strikes the self.
A word wounds me. A brother disappoints me. A sister criticizes me.
A colleague receives praise. A poor person does not behave gratefully.
A student resists my wisdom. A parishioner misunderstands me.
A stranger challenges my comfort. A community fails to recognize my importance.
A social change makes me feel displaced.
Then the question arises: Am I poor in spirit?
Francis is not asking whether I feel pain. He is asking whether I am possessed by the pain. He is asking whether the wound becomes my identity, whether the grievance becomes my treasure, and whether the injury becomes the lens through which I now see the neighbor.
This is where the poor imagination becomes a psychology of dispossession.
The false self is always trying to possess something: honor, certainty, reputation, recognition, grievance, innocence, authority, moral superiority. But Admonition 14 asks whether I can remain free when those possessions are touched.
Can I remain free when I am not praised? Can I remain free when I am corrected?
Can I remain free when another is preferred? Can I remain free when the poor do not confirm my self-image as generous?
Can I remain free when the neighbor refuses to play the role I assigned?
Hammond describes the reversal in Admonition 14 as self-decentering. The truly poor in spirit is not practicing self-loathing. Rather, the self is no longer the organizing center of everything. Poverty of spirit prioritizes the other. The body prioritizes the self. The Spirit blesses a person into that inversion. This distinction matters.
Francis is not asking us to despise our dignity. He is urging us to let go of the false self’s demand to be the center of every situation. He wants us to be free from the tyranny of being offended. Free from the impulse to retaliate. Free from the need to organize the world around our wounded ego.
We are living in an age of easily wounded selves. Public discourse is structured by offense. Political communities are organized around grievance. Social media monetizes outrage. Institutions are often paralyzed by defensiveness. Religious communities can become fragile because no one wants to be corrected, challenged, or inconvenienced.
Francis says that the poor in spirit are revealed when something is taken. When esteem is taken. When control is taken. When comfort is taken. When status is taken. When certainty is taken. When the right to be above the other is taken. What remains?
That is the question of Admonition 14. And it is also the question of the poor imagination.
The poor imagination is not the imagination of the person who has no wounds. It is the imagination of the person who refuses to let wounds become weapons. It is the imagination of the person who can endure contradiction without immediately turning the neighbor into an enemy.
Admonition 14 asks:
Can I remain poor in spirit when the poor do not satisfy my need to be seen as good?
Can I remain loving when the neighbor wounds my self-image?
Can I remain free when the other does not confirm my virtue?
This is Franciscan poverty at its deepest. It is not only the relinquishment of things. It is the relinquishment of the demanding self as the organizing center of reality.
Admonition 24: Loving the One Who Cannot Satisfy
The third and final Admonition is Admonition 24. Admonition 24 says, in substance: Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and cannot satisfy him as when he is healthy and can. This may be one of the most important Admonitions for a theology of the neighbor. Francis is asking whether love depends on usefulness.
Do I love the brother when he can help me? Do I love the sister when she can affirm me?
Do I love the neighbor when he can satisfy me? Do I love the poor when they can make me feel generous? Do I love the sick when they are patient and inspiring? Do I love the community when it meets my needs? Do I love God’s people when they give something back?
Francis says: true love is revealed when return disappears. The brother is sick. He cannot satisfy. He cannot repay. He cannot perform usefully. He cannot meet my emotional, social, or practical expectations.
And precisely there, Francis asks whether I love him as much.
As Much
That phrase is devastating: as much. Not less. Not with polite tolerance. Not with charitable condescension. Not with efficient management. Not with spiritualized resentment. Love him as much. This is the poor imagination in its mature form.
The poor imagination does not love according to usefulness. It does not measure dignity according to productivity. It does not recognize the neighbor only when the neighbor contributes, agrees, repays, affirms, inspires, or satisfies.
This is especially important for the poor, the sick, the disabled, the elderly, the imprisoned, the migrant, the unemployed, the addicted, the mentally ill, and the socially inconvenient. They often stand before society as those who cannot “satisfy” the dominant imagination. They do not produce enough, conform enough, repay enough, reassure enough, or disappear enough.
Loving “as much” is not sentiment. It is dispossession. I must relinquish my demand that the neighbor justify love by usefulness. I must relinquish the economy of exchange.
I must relinquish the expectation that the other person exists in a way that satisfies me.
That is why Admonition 24 completes the movement we have traced. Admonition 1 teaches me to see. Admonition 14 teaches me to become poor in spirit when the self is struck. Admonition 24 teaches me to love when usefulness disappears.
Together, they form a psychology of dispossession.
They dispossess my eyes. They dispossess my wounded ego. They dispossess my conditional love. And what emerges is the poor imagination.
Conclusion: Becoming Poor Enough to See
The poor imagination is not romantic. It does not pretend that poverty is beautiful or that suffering is easy. It does not use the poor as symbols for our spiritual growth.
Rather, it recognizes that the poor, the sick, the excluded, and the despised reveal the falsehood of a world organized by usefulness, status, purity, and control.
The poor reveal the lie of conditional dignity. Our society often says:
You matter if you contribute. You matter if you are productive.
You matter if you are respectable. You matter if you are healthy.
You matter if you are legal. You matter if you are useful. You matter if you satisfy us.
Franciscan fraternity says:
You matter because you are brother. You matter because you are sister.
You matter because you are creature of God. You matter because Christ is present where we have been trained not to look.
So the question “Who is my neighbor?” cannot be answered merely by definition. Francis answers it by action:
See differently. Become poor in spirit. Love without return.
Or, in the language of Francis’ own life:
Dismount.
Approach.
Embrace.
Relinquish disgust.
Receive the other.
Become poor enough to see.
This is the challenge of the Admonitions for our time. We do not simply need better arguments, better programs, or better strategies, though we surely need all of those.
We need a poorer imagination: an imagination dispossessed of domination, cleansed of disgust, freed from the wounded ego, stripped of conditional love, and made capable of fraternity.
Only such an imagination can see the neighbor. Only such an imagination can receive the poor.
Only such an imagination can recognize Christ standing before us in the one we had been taught to avoid. Thank you.
David B. Couturier, OFM. Cap., is Associate Professor of Theology and Franciscan Studies and Director of the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University in Western New York. He trained as a socio-analytic psychotherapist at the Institute of Psychology in Rome, the William Alanson White Institute for Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis in New York, and the Graduate Theological Foundation in Indiana. He holds doctorates in counseling and in the psychology of organizational development. His latest book is titled, Who is My Neighbor: The Franciscan Moral Imagination in an Age of Nationalism (2026).