True Almsgiving. (Homilies on St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Xvi., Vol. Iii., P. 182.)
Charity is, indeed, a great thing, and a gift of God, and when it is rightly ordered, likens us to God Himself as far as that is possible; for it is charity which makes the man. Some one, at least, wishing to characterise man, did it in these words: Man is great, and the merciful man is honourable. Kindness is better than raising up the dead. For it is a much greater thing to feed Christ in His hunger than to raise the dead in the name of Jesus. By feeding Christ you confer a benefit upon Him; in the other case He is benefiting you. And the reward is for doing, not for receiving. As to the signs, you are under an obligation to God, but with regard to the almsgiving, you put God under an obligation to you. It is an alms when you give willingly, generously, thinking that you are rather taking than giving; when you give as if you were receiving something, as gaining rather than losing, otherwise there would be no thanks in it. He who helps his neighbour should be in gladness, not in gloom. In truth, is it not foolish that in removing the despondency of another you yourself should be despondent? You will not suffer it to be a real alms. If you are sad because you are taking away another man’s sadness, you are giving a proof of extreme unkindness and inhumanity; it is better to leave it undone than to do it in this way. Why are you sad at all? Is it for fear of diminishing your money? If this is your motive, then do not give; if you are not encouraged by the thought that it will be made up to you over and above in heaven, do not put out your hand in alms-giving. Perhaps you look for a compensation in this world. What is the good of this? Let your alms be alms and not traffic. Now, many have received their due here on earth, yet not so that they will be on this account much better than those who have not; these have been a few of the weaker, since they did not go vigorously after the things above. And like greedy and common people, slaves of their belly, who, called to a royal table, and not waiting for the right time, do as children do, spoil their own mirth by snatching up and satiating themselves with inferior food: so, indeed, is it that they who seek and receive temporal good things lessen the reward above. Again, in lending your money, you become desirous of securing the capital after a time, or, perhaps, of not spending it, so that you may lay up more for the future, whereas in this case you demand it at once, although you are not always to be here, but for ever there. Nor are you to be judged here, but to give an account there. Supposing that a man prepared houses for you where you did not mean to stay, you would view his act as a penalty; and would you wish to grow rich in a place from which you may be called away before the evening? Know you not that we are spending our time in a foreign land, like sojourners and strangers, and that sojourners may be cast out when they are not thinking of it or expecting it. And this is our case. So it is that we leave behind us whatever we may have busied ourselves with on earth. Our Master does not allow us to take our labours with us, whether it is that we build houses, or buy estates, or slaves, or furniture, or anything else of the kind. Not only He does not allow us to go away with them, but He refuses you a reward for them. He told you beforehand that you should not build or spend with the property of others, but with your own. Why, then, leaving your own, do you labour with what is not yours, and squander it so that you will lose both your labour and your reward, and endure the extremity of punishment? Do not so act, I beseech you; but, as we are sojourners by nature, let us become so by choice, so that we may not be aliens there, rejected without honour. If we wish to be citizens in this world we shall be so neither here nor there, but if we remain sojourners, and spend our time after the fashion of sojourners, we shall receive the assurance of being citizens both here and there. For the just man, even with nothing, will be as free on earth with the common property of all as if it were his own, and when he departs hence to heaven he will look upon the eternal dwelling-places; he will neither suffer any unpleasantness in this world, nor will any man be able to make him a sojourner, who has the whole world for his city; and in taking possession of his country, he will, moreover, receive true riches. In order, then, that we may gain both the things of time and the things of eternity, let us use present goods in the right way. Thus we shall become citizens of heaven, and enjoy much consolation. May this be the portion of us all, through the love and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be glory and power for ever. Amen.