Archives by: Gary Hoag

“Charity—giving to the poor—is an essential part of Christian morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the goats it seems to the be point on which everything turns. Some people nowadays say that charity ought to be unnecessary and that instead of giving to the poor we ought to be producing a society in which there were no poor to give to. They may be quite right in saying that we ought to produce this kind of society. But if anyone thinks that, as a consequence, you can stop giving in the meantime, then he has parted company with all Christian morality…

I am speaking now of “charities” in the common way. Particular cases of distress among your own relatives, friends, neighbours or employees, which God, as it were, forces upon your notice, may demand much more: even to the crippling and endangering of your own position. For many of us the great obstacle to charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear—fear of insecurity. This must often be recognised as a temptation. Sometimes our pride also hinders our charity; we are tempted to spend more than we ought on the showy forms of generosity (tipping, hospitality) and less than we ought on those who really need our help.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity Gift Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 2001) 116-117.

“Fear and desperation grip the hearts of many people, even in the so-called rich countries; the joy of life is diminishing; indecency and violence are on the rise; poverty is becoming more and more evident.

People have to struggle to live and, frequently, to live in an undignified way. One cause of this situation, in my opinion, is in our relationship with money and our acceptance of its power over ourselves and our society…

We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy that is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal…

Money has to serve, not to rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ’s name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them.”

Pope Francis in Vatican Information Service 16 May 2013 Bulletin: “Pope to New Ambassadors: Financial Crisis Rooted in Rejection of Ethics.”

For more info, visit www.visnews.org or www.vatican.va. I read this article en route to Trinity College in Bristol, England where I have safely arrived in anticipation of my PhD final viva slated for 18 June 2013.

“People who are in danger of perishing for lack of knowledge, still are very numerous. The much which has been done, is little compared with what the Society [for Promoting Religious Knowledge among the Poor] might yet do, were the resources equal to the wishes. I trust my request, that you will strengthen their hands at this time, will not be in vain; and that the brief account I have given you of their design and progress, will render further solicitation needless.”

John Newton (1725-1807), author of Amazing Grace, said these words in his sermon preached in the Parish Church of St. Mary Woolnoth on Wednesday, November 21, 1787, on the day of the annual meeting of the Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge among the Poor. Taken from The Works of Rev. John Newton (London: Nelson and Paternoster, 1853) 849.

“Loving Lord, thank you for your generosity to me. May I realise afresh each day how gracious and generous you are. Help me to be a good steward of all that you have entrusted to me. As I exercise that stewardship, help me to reflect your generosity to the world around me. Amen.”

John Preston, National Stewardship Officer of the Church of England, in The Money Revolution: Applying Christian Principles to Handling your Money (Gloucester, UK: Gloucester Diocesan Board of Finance, 2007) 18.

“Hoarding God’s goodness is not a viable option. We must be keenly aware of our responsibility to open ourselves up to be conduits of God’s grace and abundance…

As followers of Jesus, we are to live from the abundance of our God. He has more than enough for us—and he gives us more than enough to spread around to others…

I want to stand beneath the fountain of God’s abundance and drink deeply, not so I can simply be filled but so others may be filled as well through the overflow of my life. God has everything we could ever need or desire—and he is by no means stingy.

As his people we are to personify the overflowing fountain: what God pours into us should furiously drip onto others. Though we may partake in his fountain, God created us to be fountains ourselves, not sponges.

Let God fill the empty places in your heart to the point of overflowing so that your life may touch those around you.”

Jason Chatraw in Mystics, Mavericks & Miracle Workers: A 30-day Journey with Some Saints (Boise: Ampelon, 2007) 145.

“In accordance with the will of God and the union of nature, we ought to be of mutual help one to the others, and to vie with each other in doing duties, to lay all our advantages as it were before all, and (to use the words of Scripture) to bring help one to the other from a feeling of devotion or of duty, by giving money, or by doing something, at any rate in some way or other; so that the charm of human fellowship may ever grow sweeter among us…”

St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (338-397), from On the Duties of the Clergy, Book One, Chapter XXVIII.

“The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly.”

John of the Cross (1542-1591) in Ascent of Mount Carmel XI.4.

“My experience of prayer was forever changed when I came to understand that prayer is a gift which God gives rather than an obligation or task that we are bound as Christians to carry out…

When we understand this—that prayer is a gift that God gives—we see that the posture of prayer is a posture of receptivity, of awareness, of attentiveness to what God is offering us, moment by moment, day by day.

We learn to “pray without ceasing” by watching and listening for signs of God’s presence and activity, even in the very ordinary circumstances of life.

God comes to us—in a conversation with a friend, in a word from Scripture, in a moment of worship, in the beauty of nature, in the wonder of human relationships—to love us and bless us, to console us and challenge us.”

David Vryhof, Selah Faculty, in “Attentiveness” in SILENCIO, a resource of Leadership Transformations, June 2013, sixth edition.

“Let us thus think often that our only business in this life is to please God, that perhaps all besides is but folly and vanity…Let us renounce, let us generously renounce, for the love of Him, all that is not Himself; He deserves infinitely more. Let us think of Him perpetually. Let us put our trust in him: I doubt not but we shall soon find the effects of it, in receiving the abundance of His grace, with which we can do all things, and without which we can do nothing but sin.” (Cf. Mark 10:21)

Brother Lawrence (1611-1691) Carmelite Monk in Paris who served as a cook and learned to make his daily routine an occasion for ceaseless prayer. Excerpt from “The Ninth Letter” in The Practice the Presence of God: The Best Rule of Holy Life.

“We must never wish anything other than what happens from moment to moment, all the while, however, exercising ourselves in goodness [generosity].”

St. Catherine of Genoa in Vita 22; as quoted by Friedrich von Hügel in The Mystical Element of Religion (London: Dent, 1909) 265.