Jesus Is Poor Jesus, the Blessed One, is poor. The poverty of Jesus is much more than an economic or social poverty. Jesus is poor because he freely chose powerlessness over power, vulnerability over defensiveness, dependency over self-sufficiency. As the great “Song of Christ” so beautifully expresses: “He . . . did not count equality with God something to be grasped. But he emptied himself . . . becoming as human beings are” (Philippians 2:6-7).