“Nolite tollere quidquam in via”: Padre Pio, the food we need, and Mary’s baggage

By Prof. Dr. Daniel C. Afonso · Updated 19 October 2026

Nolite tollere quidquam in via. […] Da mihi nec mendicitatem nec divitias, tribue tantum victum necessarium.
Lk 9:3 and Prov 30:8

Wednesday of the Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, the day on which the Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, brings together an ancient prayer about what is enough and a mandate for mission without baggage. Agur, the sage of Proverbs, asks God to give him neither poverty nor riches, only the food he needs. Jesus sends out the Twelve without staff, without bag, without bread, and without money. One text asks for the right measure. The other takes from the missionary even that measure.

I. The first reading: Prov 30:5-9

The passage begins with a principle about the Word and ends in a personal prayer, and the two parts are connected. “Every word of God is tested; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him” (v. 5), says the sage, and he immediately adds the warning: “add nothing to his words” (v. 6). The oldest religious temptation is not to abandon revelation but to enlarge it, adding to it demands and certainties that it did not give.

Then comes one of the few personal prayers in the book, and it is remarkable for its calculated modesty. “Two things I ask of you, Lord” (v. 7). The first is truth: “put falsehood and lying far from me.” The second is the material measure: “give me neither poverty nor riches; grant me only the food I need” (v. 8). And the motive is not comfort but lucidity about himself: in abundance he might deny God, asking “who, after all, is the Lord?”, and in destitution he might steal and profane the name of God (v. 9). Agur knows both threats and knows that the second does not make him more virtuous than the first. Poverty does not sanctify automatically. It tempts as well.

II. The Gospel: Lk 9:1-6

Jesus gives the Twelve “power and authority over all demons and to cure all diseases” (v. 1) and, immediately afterward, takes everything else away from them. The list of prohibitions is meticulous: “neither staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money, and do not take two tunics” (v. 3). None of these things was superfluous for someone traveling on foot through Galilee. The staff was for the road and for the dogs; the spare tunic was for the cold nights.

The next instruction is equally practical. “Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave from there” (v. 4), which forbids looking for better lodging and obliges the missionary to accept whatever is first given to him. And the final gesture, shaking the dust from one’s feet before those who do not receive them (v. 5), is not a curse but an acknowledgment. Not everything depends on the one who is sent. There are refusals before which the only response is to move on.

The meaning of all this detachment is clear. Whoever arrives with nothing depends on whoever receives him, and that dependence is part of the message. A self-sufficient envoy would proclaim a Kingdom that needs no one.

III. Padre Pio and the food we need

Today’s memorial fits these readings better than it seems. Francesco Forgione (1887-1968), a Capuchin from Pietrelcina, is known for the extraordinary phenomena that accompanied his life, and it is precisely for this reason that it is worth looking at what he did every day. He spent hours on end in the confessional, celebrated Mass, and founded a home for the relief of the sick in San Giovanni Rotondo. He was canonized by John Paul II in 2002.

There is one fact that matters more than the prodigies. For years he was forbidden to celebrate publicly and to hear confessions, by decision of the very ecclesiastical authority that was investigating the phenomena, and he obeyed without defending himself. It is the gesture of one who shakes the dust from his feet without bitterness, and it is the only solid proof that what was happening to him came from God. Extraordinary gifts are not verified by how spectacular they are; they are verified by the obedience of the one who receives them. Agur asked to have neither too much nor too little. Padre Pio received much and lived as if he had nothing.

IV. Mary, the one who took only what was necessary

The prayer of Agur finds in Scripture a fulfillment that devotion does not always associate with it. When Mary and Joseph present the Child in the Temple, they offer “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons” (Lk 2:24), which was the offering prescribed in the Law for those who could not afford a lamb. It is not a poverty chosen out of asceticism; it is the real condition of a family of craftsmen, and Luke records it without comment.

Mary belongs to those whom the Council calls the humble and poor of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive salvation from Him (LG 55). She had no riches that would make her ask “who is the Lord?”, nor destitution that would lead her to profane His name. She had the food she needed, and she sang because of it: “he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” (Lk 1:53). It is the prayer of Agur transformed into a canticle, with one decisive difference. Agur asks to be spared the two temptations. Mary proclaims that God is already overturning the order that produces them.

And there is the mandate to set out without baggage. Luke shows her rising and going in haste to the hill country right after the Annunciation (Lk 1:39), without the text mentioning any preparations. Then in Bethlehem, without a house. Then in Egypt, without a homeland. Then in Nazareth, without a name. Her whole life is the itinerary of one who took neither staff nor bag, and arrived where she had to arrive.

Wednesday of the Twenty-Fifth Week therefore leaves an uncomfortable question for those who already have everything organized. What is there in our life that exists above all to spare us from depending on someone? For that is probably what Jesus would tell us to leave at home.