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John Chrysostom: Sermon on 1 Timothy

“Tell me then, how did you come by your wealth? Did you receive from someone? Where did you get it from? From his grandfather, you say, or from his father. Are you able to show, as you go back through the generations, that it was justly acquired? It cannot have been. No, the beginning and root of wealth must lie in injustice of some sort. And why? Because in the beginning, God did not create one person wealthy and another to go wanting; nor did he at some point later in time, reveal great heaps of gold to one person and cheat another searcher. He gave one and the same earth to all alike. And inasmuch as the earth is a common possession, how is it that you have acres and acres of land, while your neighbor has not the tiniest fraction of the earth? It is an inheritance from my father, you say. And from whom did it come to him? From his ancestors, you say. Yet you must go back and search out the origin of your claim. Jacob grew wealthy, but it came as what he earned from his own toil. Still, I will not quibble too much over details. I grant you that your wealth may have been gathered honestly and without any taint of larceny–that the gold he had somehow just gushed up out of the earth. What of it? Is wealth something good? Not at all. Still, he argues, it is not something evil. No, it is not something evil–so long as it is not hoarded and shared out with those in need. Unshared, wealth becomes something evil, a trap. But not doing a good work, he goes on, is not tantamount to doing an evil one or being an evil person. True enough, but isn’t the fact that you claim sole ownership of what belongs to the Lord, of what is common property, something evil? Or do you deny that the Lord’s is the earth and its fullness? And so, if whatever we have belongs to our one common Lord, it belongs also to those who are his servants along with us. Whatever belongs to the Lord belongs equally to all. Isn’t this the arrangement established in great households, where all get an equal share of food since it comes from the store of their master? The master’s house is available to all. Whatever kings own–cities, marketplaces, public walks–is common property, shared equally by all. Now look at God’s loving plan. In order that they might put humankind to shame, he created certain things as common property–the sun, the air, the earth and water, the sky, the sea, light and the stars–and shares them out equally as with members of a single family. He has fashioned us all with the same eyes and body and soul, the same equipment in all respects, all things that come from the earth, all human beings from a single parent and all of us in one dwelling place. But none of these shames us. Other things as well he made common property–baths, cities, marketplaces, walkways. And notice that no one argues over what belongs to all in common; all is peaceful. Strife comes on the scene only when someone tries to gain possession of something and make it his own. It is as if human nature itself grows wroth when, in spite of God’s uniting us in every way, we are bent on dividing and standing apart by owning things and using phrases like “This belongs to me” or “That is yours”–chilling words indeed. This is the occasion of quarreling and turmoil; without this sort of conduct there can be no quarrel and no contention. It is rather the state of common property that is our inheritance which is more in keeping with our nature. Why do we never argue over who owns the market-place? Is it not because it belongs to all alike? It is rather over houses and possessions that we see each other always at each other’s throats. Whatever is necessary for life is given to all alike; yet even in the smallest matters we cannot seem to keep things in common to all. God has made these great gifts available to all in common so that we might learn to share lesser things. Nevertheless, we have not learned this lesson. To return to my earlier questions: how can a rich person be a good person? He is a good person when he shares his wealth; by no longer being wealthy he becomes good–by giving his wealth to others. As long as he hoards it for himself he is not good.”

John Chrysostom (c. 349-407) Archbishop of Constantinople in Sermon 12.4 in Ep I ad Tim.

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Peter, Paul and Francis De Sales: The Church is a blooming garden

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4:10

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 2 Timothy 1:6

“Each of you has his own endowment from God, one to live in this way, another in that. It is an impertinence, then, to try to find out why St. Paul was not given St. Peter’s grace, or St. Peter given Paul’s. There is only one answer to such questions: the Church is a garden patterned with countless flowers, so there must be a variety of sizes, colors, scents–of perfections, after all. Each has its own value, its charm, its joy; while the whole vast cluster of these variations makes for beauty in its most graceful form.”

Francis de Sales (1567-1622) French Bishop and Author on topics of Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Direction in Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, 160.

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Thomas Merton: No generosity goes unnoticed before God!

“There is not an act of kindness or generosity, not an act of sacrifice done, or a word of peace and gentleness spoke, not a child’s prayer uttered, that does not sing hymns to God before His throne, and in the eyes of men, and before their faces.”

Thomas Merton in The Seven Storey Mountain (New York: Image Books, 1970) 162.

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St. Cuthbert: Give your best to the least of these!

“In Matthew, Jesus–the Way, the Truth and the Life–says, “I tell you solemnly, insofar as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me” (25:40, italics mine).

Placing absolute trust in this living Word, St. Cuthbert, having just received a beautiful horse from the king because the former is limping and aging, rides down the road, sees a ragged beggar, and gives him the horse. Word reaches the king. He is angry.

At their next meeting the king says to Cuthbert, “I gave you a magnificent horse and you squandered it on a worthless beggar. I should have given you a sorry old mare.”

“Ah, my beloved king,” says Cuthbert, “you value the son of a thoroughbred more than you value the son of God.”

St. Cuthbert (c. 634-687) monk, bishop and hermit associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne, as retold in Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning (New York: HarperCollins, 2000) 167-168.

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D. Edmond Hiebert: Christian leaders and money

Now the overseer is to be…no lover of lover of money…In the same way deacons are to be…not pursuing dishonest gain…1 Timothy 3:3, 8

“This requires that he must be free from avarice, not mercenary, not stingy. The desire for money must not be a ruling motive in his life…Nor must they be “greedy of filthy lucre,” that is, “eager for base gain,” turning the opportunities of their office into a means of personal profit.”

D. Edmund Hiebert in 1 Timothy (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1957) 66-69.

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Ronald Rolheiser: How we treat the poor is how we treat God

“How we treat the poor is how we treat God. For this reason, Jesus asks us to make a preferential option for the poor:

When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. Luke 14:12-14

Reaching out, preferentially, to the poor is an essential component of the spiritual life.

Ronald Rolheiser in The Holy Longing: The Search for Christian Spirituality (New York: Doubleday, 1999) 65.

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William Arthur Ward: Cultivate thankfulness to combat materialism

“The more we count the blessings we have, the less we crave the luxuries we haven’t.”

William Arthur Ward (1921-1994) in Thoughts of a Christian Optimist: the Words of William Arthur Ward (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1968) 89.

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James Buchanan and Dwight D. Eisenhower: America’s motto, legacy, and money

“In God we trust.”

These words appeared first on U.S. coins in 1860 during the presidency of James Buchanan, a devout presbyterian.

These words became the official motto of the United States of America in 1956 during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, also a presbyterian.

In 1957 the motto also began to be printed on paper money. Their legacy continues to appear on our money to this day.

May this motto be the legacy of each of our lives and may our money serve only to remind us of this reality: “In God we trust.”

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Bono on Social Justice

I take Christ at His Word: “on Earth as it is in Heaven.” We’ve got to start bringing Heaven down to Earth–now.

Bono, lead singer for U2, in Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas (New York: Riverhead, 2005) 254.

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Shepherd of Hermas: Echoing James on the purpose of wealth

Hermas warns the rich about vainly spending their resources on their own pleasures: “God gave wealth to the rich,” he says, “not for luxury but in order that they might come to the aid of the afflicted and of widows and orphans.”

Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

Shepherd of Hermas (second century) early Christian writing quoted in Beginning to Read the Fathers by Boniface Ramsey (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2012) 183.

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