Not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life; we do not possess our own wealth, but theirs.
Interpretation
Wealth is a shared resource, and not assisting those in need is a moral failure.
This quote by Saint John Chrysostom suggests that wealth should not be viewed as a personal possession but as a communal resource that everyone has a right to access. By withholding assistance from the poor, one is effectively committing an injustice against them, as their ability to thrive depends on the shared prosperity of all members of society. It emphasizes the moral obligation to help others, asserting that real ownership involves responsibility toward those less fortunate.
In practice
In a discussion about social justice, this quote could highlight the need for wealth redistribution.
No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbour a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all.
It is simply impossible to lead, without the aid of prayer, a virtuous life.
When we teach our children to be good, to be gentle, to be forgiving (all these are attributes of God), to be generous, to love their follow men, to regard this present age as nothing, we instill virtue in their souls, and reveal the image of God within them.
Abba Moses asked Abba Sylvanus, Can a person lay a new foundation every day? The old man replied, If you work hard, you can lay a new foundation every moment. Abba Pimen said, To throw yourself before God, not to measure your progress, to leave behind all self-will; these are the instruments for the work of the soul. The desire to rule is the mother of heresies.
I hear no one boast, that he hath a knowledge of the Scriptures, but that he owneth a Bible written in golden characters. And tell me then, what profiteth this? The Holy Scriptures were not given to us that we should enclose them in books, but that we should engrave them upon our hearts.
Prayer should be the means by which I, at all times, receive all that I need, and, for this reason, be my daily refuge, my daily consolation, my daily joy, my source of rich and inexhaustible joy in life.
God does not have a fixed plan that he must carry out; on the contrary, he has many different ways of finding man and even of turning his wrong ways into right ways...The feast of Christ the King is therefore not a feast of those who are subjugated, but a feast of those who know that they are in the hands of the one who writes straight on crooked lines.
No man has a more perfect reliance on the alwise and powerful dispensations _x000D_ of the Supreme Being than I have, nor thinks His aid more necessary.
The merit claimed for the Anglican Church is that,_x000D_ if you let it alone,_x000D_ it will let you alone.
Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.
Christians will want to be in the vanguard in favoring ways of life that decisively break with the exhausting and joyless frenzy of consumerism.
So I should be aware of the dangers of self-consciousness, but at the same time, Iβll be plowing through the fog of all these echoes, plowing through mixed metaphors, noise, and will try to show the core, which is still there, as a core, and is valid, despite the fog. The core is the core is the core. There is always the core, that canβt be articulated. Only caricatured.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.