“When you hoard all these things in the insatiable bosom of greed, do you suppose that you do nothing wrong in cheating so many people? Who is a greedy man? Someone who is not content with what is sufficient. Who is a cheater? Someone who takes what belongs to others. And are you not a greedy man, are you not a cheater, when you take the things you received for the sake of stewardship and make them your own? Anyone who takes a man who is clothed and renders him naked would be termed a robber; but does someone who fails to clothe the naked when he is able to do so deserve any other appellation? The bread you are holding back belongs to the hungry; the coat you keep in your closet belongs to the naked; the shoes moldering in your closet belong to the shoeless; the silver you hide in a safe place belongs to the needy. Thus, the more there are whom you could help, the more there are whom you are wronging.”
Beliefnet
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posted July 28, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Thank you for this timely reminder and for the nudge to visit the dotCommonweal page. Thank you.
posted July 29, 2010 at 4:42 pm
I copied this quote into my e-mail yesterday so that I will always have it handy. I felt convicted after reading it. Basil is talking about what the gospel of Christ looks like in action, and he’s not sticking to nice, safe, pleasant abstractions.
Now that I’m confronted with this quote, I have to ask myself: What exactly am I going to change in my life in order to live the true life of a Christian? I must ask this because, frankly, I do not want my neighbors to go hungry or naked, and I do not want to go to hell for my sins of omission (which strike me as a more likely road to hell than the sins of commission that most of worry about staining our souls).
I can’t just read that quote and go on my merry way, can I?