Homilia de misericordia et judicio

Of the Same Author: On Mercy and Judgment. Father, give the blessing. The world that forgets God, brothers, is held by injustice toward one's neighbor and by inhumanity toward the powerless, just as the divine Apostle says: "As they did not deem it fit to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them over to a reprobate mind, to do what is not fitting, being filled with every injustice, wickedness, greed, vice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, whisperers, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of evils, disobedient to parents, senseless, without affection, without mercy." But those whom God leads back to piety, He teaches both the abstention from evils and the care of mercy toward one's neighbor, just as the prophet Isaiah taught from the mouth of God, saying: "Cease from your wickednesses, learn to do good." And the law had many commandments concerning not harming one's neighbor, and also injunctions concerning being philanthropic and showing mercy. For if someone were to abandon one of these, the other is not sufficient for the correction of a person. For neither is beneficence toward the needy from unjust gains acceptable to God, nor is the one who abstains from injustices praiseworthy if he shares nothing of his own with anyone. For concerning those who do wrong and attempt to offer gifts to God, it is written: "The sacrifice of the impious is an abomination to the Lord"; and concerning those who do not show mercy: "He who stops his ears so as not to hear the poor man will himself call out, and there will be no one to hear him." Therefore the Proverb advises.

Honor the Lord from your righteous labors, and offer to him the firstfruits of your righteousness. For if you intend to offer to God from injustice and plunder, it is better neither to acquire such property nor to offer from it. For a pure gift will bear the prayer, as it is written: The prayers of the upright are acceptable to him. And again, if while acquiring from righteous labors you do not offer to God offerings from which the poor are fed, it will be accounted to you as plunder, as he says through the prophet Malachi: The firstfruits and the tithes are with you, and plunder will be in your houses. Therefore you must, blending mercy and judgment, acquire with judgment and expend on mercy, according to what is written: Keep mercy and judgment, and draw near to your God continually. For God loves almsgiving and judgment. Hence he who provides for mercy and judgment draws near to God. So then let each one here examine himself, and let the rich man consider his own resources from which he intends to offer gifts to God: whether he has oppressed the poor, whether he has coerced the weaker, whether he has defrauded his subordinate, using authority instead of justice. For we are commanded to preserve justice and equality even toward slaves. Do not, because you have power, use force; nor, because you are able, be greedy; but since the means of authority are at hand, show the means of justice. For you will not provide the proof of obedience and fear toward God in what you cannot do, but in what you are able to transgress and do not transgress.

But if, having taken from the poor, you give to the poor, it would be better for you neither to seize nor to give. Why do you defile your own wealth by introducing unjust gains into it? Why do you make your own offering abominable, proceeding from injustice, when you attempt to offer, while you are about to have mercy on another poor person? Have mercy on that one whom you wrong. Spend your philanthropy on this one; bestow it on this one, and you will fulfill mercy with judgment. For God will not share in greed, nor is the Lord a partner of thieves and plunderers; nor did He leave the poor to us as though He were unable to support them, but He seeks from us the just and philanthropic fruit-bearing for our own benefit. Mercy from injustice does not come to be, nor does blessing from a curse, nor good deeds from tears. God says to those who stir up the tears of the wronged: "What I hated, you did; you covered my altar with tears, with weeping and groaning." Have mercy from your labors, and do not wish to do wrong, using the pretext of bringing mercy to God from injustice. Such things are vainglory, directed toward praise from men, not toward the praise that comes from God who sees. Therefore the Lord well says, "not to be seen by men." For if you perform almsgiving as though God sees it, you will take care not to do it from greed, knowing that you do not gladden God the Overseer. Thus let us do almsgiving so that we may receive from God. And God gives back to those whom he praises; but he praises no greedy person. You cannot bring gifts to God if you have grieved your brother.

If you bring your gift, he says, to the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, go first, be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Remember the publican Zacchaeus, who, having resolved to repay fourfold if he had extorted anything, thus distributed half of his remaining money to the poor. For he knew that he wished to receive Christ, and that Christ would not otherwise accept the benefactions to the poor unless the injustices against those wronged were resolved. And thus the Lord accepted Zacchaeus’s uprightness, and said: Today salvation has come to this house. And these things are said to those who give alms but do not take thought for equity. But to the one who refrains from doing injustice but neglects to show mercy, we say that every tree that does not bear fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, and such a tree will never please the heavenly farmer who says that he came seeking fruit on the fig tree and did not find it, and orders it to be cut down, so that it may not even occupy the place. And the one who does not return the pledge to the poor man appears condemned before God, and a threat is made against such a one. For, he says, the one who does not receive back his pledge will cry out to me, and I will hear him. For I am merciful. And it was a terrible and unlawful thing to reap the harvest a second time, to gather the vintage a second time, and to glean the olive grove, because these things ought to have been left for the poor. But if these things were commanded to those under the law, what shall we say concerning those in Christ, to whom the Lord says:

Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. For this reason, the Apostle exhorts not only giving from fields and revenues, but also from the work of your hands to those who have not: "Working," he says, "the good with your hands, so that you may have something to give to the one in need." For the one who wishes to follow, the Lord proposed selling all his property for the benefit of the poor, and thus to follow him; for the followers and the perfect he commands the sudden and complete fulfillment of almsgiving, so that, having fulfilled the ministry through money, they may pass on to that through word and spirit; for the rest he enjoins constant giving and sharing from what they have, so that through these they may be found imitators of God's love for humanity, showing mercy, giving, and bestowing. "For give," he says, "and it will be given to you." Through these things he also promised them communion with himself. For these are the ones standing at the right hand of the Lord, to whom he will say when he arrives,

king: "Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit 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 to drink; I was naked, and you clothed me; I was a stranger, and you gathered me in; I was weak and in prison, and you came to me." And when the righteous marvel and say, "When did we do these things to you, Lord?" he will say to them, "Truly, truly I say to you, insofar as you did these things to one of these least brothers of mine, you did them to me." For eagerness toward the saints is piety toward Christ, and the servant eager toward the poor is found to be a sharer of Christ; not only if one, possessing something great, gives a share, but also if one, possessing something small, offers this, and if one gives only a cup of cold water to a disciple in the name of a disciple. For the poverty of the disciples according to the world is a pretext for true wealth for you, O rich man. For through them you find yourself a fellow worker of Christ; you feed soldiers of Christ, and you feed willingly, not under compulsion. For the heavenly king does not compel, nor does he demand payments, but he receives those who are willing, so that by giving they may receive, and by honoring they may be honored, and by sharing in the temporal, they may be called to a share in the eternal. Let these things be in our memory at all times, and before the eyes of the soul, so that we may not let slip the opportunity that has fallen to us, nor, putting off the present, wait for another, lest while we tarry and delay we be overtaken by the end.

May the Lord grant that we be fruitful and vigilant, mindful of his commandments, and be found ready and unhindered for his glorious encounter, in Christ himself, our God, with whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit belong glory, power, honor, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.