Catholic Radio Dramas

Serve Christ in the poor

From a sermon by Saint Gregory Nazianzen, bishop (c. 329-389)

Serve Christ in the poor

Blessed are the merciful, because they shall obtain mercy, says the Scripture. Mercy is not the least of the beatitudes. Again: Blessed is he who is considerate to the needy and the poor. Once more: Generous is the man who is merciful and lends. In another place: All day the just man is merciful and lends. Let us lay hold of this blessing, let us earn the name of being considerate, let us be generous.

Not even night should interrupt you in your duty of mercy. Do not say: Come back and I will give you something tomorrow. There should be no delay between your intention and your good deed. Generosity is the one thing that cannot admit of delay.

Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the needy and the homeless into your house, with a joyful heart. He who does acts of mercy should do so with cheerfulness. The grace of a good deed is doubled when it is done with promptness and speed. What is given with a bad grace or against one’s will is distasteful and far from praiseworthy.

When we perform an act of kindness we should rejoice and not be sad about it. If you undo the shackles and the thongs, says Isaiah, that is, if you do away with miserliness and counting the cost, with hesitation and grumbling, what will be the result? Something great and wonderful! What a marvelous reward there will be: Your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will rise up quickly. Who would not aspire to light and healing.

If you think that I have something to say, servants of Christ, his brethren and coheirs, let us visit Christ whenever we may; let us care for him, feed him, clothe him, welcome him, honor him, not only at a meal, as some have done, or by anointing him, as Mary did, or only by lending him a tomb, like Joseph of Arimathaea, or by arranging for his burial, like Nicodemus, who loved Christ half-heartedly, or by giving him gold, frankincense and myrrh, like the Magi before all these others.

The Lord of all asks for mercy, not sacrifice, and mercy is greater than myriads of fattened lambs. Let us then show him mercy in the persons of the poor and those who today are lying on the ground, so that when we come to leave this world they may receive us into everlasting dwelling places in Christ our Lord himself, to whom be glory for ever and ever and ever. Amen.

Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings

Saint Gregory Nazianzen (c. 329-389) was born at Nazianzus, Cappadocia and studied rhetoric at Caesarea, Palestine, and then for ten years at Athens. Gregory joined St. Basil at Pontus on the Iris River to live a solitary life. He was ordained in 362 and was named bishop of the Arian territory of Sasima, an area torn by civil strife. He was invited to Constantinople to help revitalize the Church in the East. There his eloquent preaching at the Church of Anastasia brought floods of converts but also torrents of abuse and persecution from the Arians. He was named archbishop of Constantinople but later retired to private life and lived in great austerity. He died at Nazianzus on January 25, 389. Declared a Doctor of the Church, Gregory is often surnamed “the Theologian” for his eloquent defense of orthodoxy and the decrees of the Council of Nicaea, notably his celebrated sermons on the Trinity, and his Five Theological Orations, delivered at St. Anastasia in Constantinople. Together with St. Basil, he compiled a selection of writings by Origen. His powerful discourse above is a “crash-course” in the theology of the Incarnation.