“If you give something to one in need, let the cheerfulness of your face precede your gift, and comfort his sorrow with kind words. When you do this, by your gift the gladness of his mind surpasses even the needs of his body”
+ St. Isaac of Nineveh, Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian
Do not disdain those who are deformed from birth, because all of us will go to the grave equally privileged.
+ St. Isaac of Nineveh, “Homily 5: On Keeping Oneself Remote From the World and From All Things That Disquiet the Intellect,” Ascetical Homilies of St Isaac the Syrian
What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
-Saint Augustine of Hippo
“For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it.”
— St. Augustine of Hippo, Letter to St. Jerome, 1:3
“Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.”
— St. Augustine of Hippo
The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.”
St. Anthony The Great
It is not from your own goods that you give to the beggar; it is a portion of his own that you are restoring to him. The Earth belongs to all. So you are paying back a debt and think you are making a gift to which you are not bound.
-Saint Ambrose of Milan
Do you wish to honor the Body of the Savior? Do not despise it when it is naked. Do not honor it in church with silk vestments while outside it is naked and numb with cold. He who said, “This is my body,” and made it so by his word, is the same who said, ‘You saw me hungry and you gave me no food. As you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.’ Honor him then by sharing your property with the poor. For what God needs is not golden chalices but golden souls.”
+ St. John Chrysostom, Homily 50, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew
“Almsgiving above all else requires money, but even this shines with a brighter luster when the alms are given from our poverty. The widow who paid in the two mites was poorer than any human, but she outdid them all.”
+ St. John Chrysostom
“The rich exist for the sake of the poor. The poor exist for the salvation of the rich.”
— St. John Chrysostom
