On the Feast of the Assumption in 1174, a cloth merchant named Peter Waldo stood in the market square of Lyon handing out the last of his money to the poor. “No one can serve two masters, God and mammon!” he cried (Matt. 6:24). “Citizens and friends, I am not mad, as you imagine … I am urged to this for my own good and yours; for myself, that if hereafter anyone should see me with money, he may say that I have gone mad; for you also, that you may learn to put your trust in God and not in riches.”

Tradition recounts that Waldo had stood there week after week giving out food to famine-ravaged townspeople. Before this, he had provided for his wife and two daughters and commissioned vernacular translations of the New Testament and other texts by Church Fathers. His conversion happened after a companion died of a seizure during a banquet. “If death had taken me, what would now be my destiny?” Waldo realized with a shock. A few weeks later, a passing troubadour sang of Saint Alexis, who had abandoned wealth, status, and family for a life of itinerant poverty. Deeply moved, Waldo invited the minstrel home to hear the story again. The following day he asked a priest which way to heaven was the most perfect. “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor,” was the reply (Matt. 19:21).

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