'And now, son, I charge you: serve God in truth and do before Him what pleases Him, and charge your children to do righteousness and almsdeeds, and to be mindful of God and to bless His name at all times.' And again: 'All the days of your life, son, keep God in mind, and do not transgress His precepts. Do righteousness all the days of your life, and do not walk in the way of iniquity; for if you act out of truth, there will be regard for your works. Of your substance do almsgiving, and turn not your face away from any poor man. So shall it come to pass that the face of God shall not be turned away from you. As you have, son, so do: if you have abundant substance, do the more almsgiving out of it.'
'If you have little, even of that little impart. And do not be afraid when you give alms: you lay up for yourself a good reward against the day of necessity, because almsgiving delivers from death and does not suffer one to go into darkness. Almsgiving is a good gift for all who do it before the most high God.' What a gift it is, dearly beloved brethren, whose performance is celebrated with God looking on.
If at a gentile's show it seems grand and glorious to have proconsuls or emperors present, and the preparation and expense among those who give the games is the greater that they may please the great, how much more illustrious and greater is the glory of the show to have God and Christ as spectators! How much more lavish here ought the preparation to be and more abundant the expense, where there gather for the spectacle the powers of the heavens, where all the angels assemble, where for the giver of the games not a four-horse chariot or a consulship is sought, but eternal life is granted; nor is the empty and temporary favour of the crowd grasped after, but the perpetual reward of the heavenly kingdom is received.
And that the lazy and the barren, and those who out of love of money do nothing toward the fruit of salvation, may be the more ashamed; that the blush may the more strike their conscience, soiled with disgrace and baseness, let each one set before his eyes the devil leaping forth into the midst with his servants—that is, with the people of perdition and death—and challenging the people of Christ, with Christ Himself present and judging, by the test of comparison, saying: 'I, for these whom you see with me, neither received blows nor endured scourges nor bore a cross nor shed my blood, nor did I redeem my household with the price of passion and gore; but neither do I promise them the heavenly kingdom, nor do I recall them once more to paradise with immortality restored.
And what gifts they procure for me—how costly, how grand, sought with excessive and long labour, with most sumptuous preparations—by pledging or selling their possessions for the procuring of the show! And unless the performance turns out honourable, they are cast out with reproaches and hissings, and sometimes by the popular fury are almost stoned. Show me such givers of games as these of Yours, O Christ! Those rich men, those abounding in copious wealth—do they, with You presiding and looking on in the Church, give such a show, their possessions pledged or sold, nay rather transferred for the better into heavenly treasures by changed possession? In these gifts of mine, fleeting and earthly, no one is fed, no one is clothed, no one is sustained with the solace of any food or drink.
All things perish amid the frenzy of the one giving and the error of the one watching, in the prodigal and foolish vanity of frustrating pleasures. There, in Your poor ones, You Yourself are clothed and fed; You promise eternal life to those who labour: and my men, with their perishing, are scarcely made equal to Yours, who by You are honoured with divine wages and heavenly rewards.' What shall we answer to these things, dearly beloved brethren? By what reasoning do we defend the sacrilegious barrenness and the minds of the rich, covered as it were with the night of darkness; by what excuse do we cleanse them? We who are less than the servants of the devil, in that we do not repay Christ even in small things in return for the price of His passion and blood.
He gave us precepts, He instructed us what His servants ought to do; promising a reward to those who labour and threatening punishment to the barren, He has pronounced His sentence, He has foretold what He is about to judge. What excuse can there be for one who holds back, what defense for the barren? Except that, the servant not doing what is commanded, the Lord will do what He threatens. He who also says: 'When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory, and before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say to those who are on His right hand:'
'Come, blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you took Me in, naked and you covered Me, I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prison and you came to Me.' Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying: 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, naked and clothe You? And when did we see You sick or in prison, and came to You?' Then shall the King answer and say to them: 'Verily I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of these My brethren the least, you did it to Me.' Then shall He say to those who are on the left:
'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which My Father has prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave Me not to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink, I was a stranger and you took Me not in, naked and you clothed Me not, sick and in prison and you visited Me not.' Then shall they also answer, saying: 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?' And He shall answer them: 'Verily I say to you, inasmuch as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me.' And these shall go away into eternal fire, but the righteous into life eternal. What greater thing could Christ proclaim to us?
How could He more strongly provoke the works of our righteousness and mercy than by saying that whatever is bestowed on the needy and the poor is bestowed on Himself, and by saying that He is offended unless it is bestowed on the needy and the poor—so that he who is not moved by regard for his brother in the Church may yet be moved by the contemplation of Christ, and he who does not think of his fellow-servant in toil and want may think of his Lord established in that very one whom he despises. And therefore, dearly beloved brethren, we whose fear toward God is ready and prone, who, the world being spurned and trampled underfoot, have our minds already raised to things above and divine—let us, with full faith, devout mind, and continual action, render obedient service in meriting the Lord. Let us give Christ earthly garments, that we may receive heavenly raiment.
Let us give worldly food and drink, that we may come with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to the heavenly banquet. That we may not reap too little, let us sow much. While there is time, let us take counsel for our eternal security and salvation, as the apostle Paul admonishes and says: 'Therefore, while we have time, let us work that which is good toward all, but especially toward those who are of the household of faith. And in doing good let us not faint, for in due season we shall reap.' Let us consider, most beloved brethren, what the believing people did under the apostles, when amid the very beginnings the mind was vigorous with greater virtues, when the faith of believers still burned with the new ardour of faith.
They then sold their houses and lands, and willingly and liberally offered to the apostles the proceeds to be distributed to the poor; their earthly patrimony being sold and parted with, they transferred their estates thither where they might receive the fruits of an eternal possession, purchasing there homes where they might begin to dwell forever. Such then was their abundance in works as was their consent in love, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles: 'And the multitude of those who had believed acted with one soul and mind; nor was there any distinction among them, nor did they count anything of their goods as their own, but all things were common to them.' This is truly by spiritual birth to become a son of God; this is by the heavenly law to imitate the equity of God the Father.
For whatever is of God is common in our use, nor is anyone barred from His benefits and gifts, so that the whole human race may equally enjoy the divine goodness and bounty. Thus equally the day gives light, the sun radiates, the rain waters, the wind breathes; and for those who sleep the sleep is one, and the splendour of the stars and of the moon is common. By which example of equality, he who as a possessor on earth shares his revenues and fruits with the brotherhood, while in free bestowals he is common and just, is an imitator of God the Father.
What will be that glory of those who labour, dearly beloved brethren—how great and supreme the gladness—when the Lord shall begin to review His people, and, bestowing the promised rewards upon our merits and works, to grant heavenly things for earthly, eternal for temporal, great for small; to present us to the Father, to whom He has restored us by His sanctification; to bestow on us the eternity and immortality unto which He has renewed us by the quickening of His blood; to bring us back again to paradise; to open the kingdoms of heaven by the faith and truth of His promise! Let these things cleave firmly to our senses, let them be understood with full faith, let them be loved with the whole heart, let them be purchased by the magnanimity of unceasing works.
A noble and divine thing, dearly beloved brethren, is the work of salvation: a great comfort of believers, a wholesome safeguard of our security, a defense of hope, a protection of faith, a remedy for sin, a thing placed in the power of the one who does it, a thing both great and easy, a crown of peace without the peril of persecution, the true and greatest gift of God, necessary for the weak, glorious for the strong; by which the Christian, being helped, carries through spiritual grace, merits Christ the Judge, reckons God his debtor. To this palm of salutary works let us contend willingly and readily; let us all run in the contest of righteousness with God and Christ looking on; and we who have already begun to be greater than this age and world, let us slow our course by no covetousness of this age and world.
If the day either of our departure or of persecution shall find us unencumbered, swift, and running in this contest of work, the Lord will nowhere be lacking to our merits for reward: in peace He will give to the conquerors a white crown for their works; in persecution He will double it with a purple one for their passion.