When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the moral responsibility to share resources with those in need.
Saint Basil's quote challenges us to reconsider our understanding of theft and generosity. It posits that withholding resources such as food, clothing, and money from those who need them is akin to stealing, as we hold an ethical obligation to share what we have with the less fortunate. This reflection on moral duty calls for a communal mindset where generosity is prioritized over hoarding, urging individuals to consider the impact of their actions on the lives of others.
In practice
During a fundraising event, this quote can inspire attendees to contribute more towards helping the less fortunate.
Now, if you notice how the swan, putting its neck down into the deep water, brings up food for itself from below, then you will discover the wisdom of the Creator, in that He gave it a neck longer than its feet for this reason, that it might, as if lowering a sort of fishing line, procure the food hidden in the deep water.
When you have become God's in the measure he desires, then he himself will bestow you upon others; unless, to your greater glory, he chooses to keep you all to himself.
What is there astonishing in the death of a mortal? But we are grieved at his dying before his time. Are we sure that this was not his time? We do not know how to pick and choose what is good for our souls, or how to fix the limits of the life of man.
I heard many discourses which were good for the soul, but I could not discover in the case of any one of the teachers that his life was worthy of his words.
To lovers of the truth, nothing can be put before God and hope in Him.
If every man took only what was sufficient for his needs, leaving the rest to those in want, there would be no rich and no poor.
The universe and the observer exist as a pair. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of the universe that ignores consciousness.
They don't understand what it is to be awake, / To be living on several planes at once / Though one cannot speak with several voices at once.
Sak, pain, love are limited human experiences. and only those who know their own frontiers, those knows the life, the rest is just passing time.
The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but what we receive, and bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.
Conversion for me was not a Damascus Road experience. I slowly moved into an intellectual acceptance of what my intuition had always known.
It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.
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