Sermon LXI, Vain excuses of the rich: first excuse only (paras 2204-2257)

Many wealthy people say: I cannot give any alms, or, I can give very little. A vain and empty excuse.—Preached on the third Sunday in Lent.

Text.

Qui non est mecum, contra me est: et qui non colligit mecum, dispergit.—Luke xi. 23.

"He that is not with Me, is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth."

Introduction.

In different ways men can be with Christ or against Him. In the first place, he who is in the grace and friendship of God and serves Him faithfully, is with Christ, but he who is in mortal sin, is against Christ, and all the good works he performs in that state, are scattered without merit, and without any gain for the next life. Again, and to speak more to my subject, he is with Christ, and gathers with Him, who keeps as his friends those whom Christ has left on earth to represent Himself, and of whom He says: "Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to Me," and of whom He will also say on the last day, after passing sentence: "For I was hungry and you gave Me to eat," in the persons of the poor and needy. I showed on last Sunday, my dear brethren, that alms-giving, according to one's means, is not a good work of mere generosity, but one of obligation that binds under pain of sin, and if it is neglected, that neglect will be brought forward on the last day as the chief cause of the damnation of the wicked. But I am well aware that many try to excuse themselves from that obligation; the times are so hard now, they think; one must keep what he has; we do not know what will happen; I cannot give alms, or I can give but very little. Ah, I must say to them, as Christ said to Peter when the latter was afraid of sinking into the sea: "You of little faith," what are you thinking of? You are not suffering from want of means, but from want of Christian hope and confidence in God. Can He not always support and provide for us all? Will He be less generous to us, if we share liberally with the poor what He has given us? But if I cannot persuade you to have that confidence, I will at least show how invalid is the excuse you bring forward, and I say— Plan of Discourse.

Many wealthy people say: I cannot give any alms, or I can give very little. A vain and empty excuse. Such is the whole subject. Therefore, be generous to the poor, and heap up treasure for yourselves with Christ in Heaven.

Such is the conclusion that we beg of Thee, O Lord, through the intercession of Mary and the holy angels guardian.

I cannot give much charity, because I have nothing superfluous; I want all that I have for myself and my family. This is the first excuse, and it is made by the spendthrift and the miser alike. But hear what the Holy Ghost says by the Wise Ecclesiasticus: "Three sorts my soul hateth, and I am greatly grieved at their life." What are they? "A poor man that is proud; a rich man that is a liar; an old man that is a fool and doting." Mind, God does not say that He hates a rich man who is proud or cruel, but a rich man who is a liar. Now what does that mean, a rich man who is a liar? A poor man comes to a rich man and asks him for alms, and the latter says: I cannot give any, I want all I have for myself.

He is a liar, says St. Augustine; he can gives if he likes, but he will not. "That rich man is a liar who always repeats the same heartless, I cannot, whenever there is question of serving God." If he were to say, I cannot mortify my flesh; I cannot bear hunger and thirst; I cannot fast so often; I cannot sleep on the bare ground; I cannot kneel so long; I cannot pray so much, etc., there might be some excuse for him; but when he says, I cannot give alms, he is a liar, and deserves to be loathed by God and man. I will say nothing now of a subject that I have already treated in detail, namely, that charity to the poor is a capital laid out at interest, that will bring in a hundredfold even in this life, according to the divine promise: "Give, and it shall be given unto you." For all charitable people experience the truth of this; while the avaricious are afraid of being at a loss, and so are unwilling to trust to the chance of making a profit by alms-giving, which is an uncertain one in their eyes. But, be that as it may, the rich man is a liar, says St. Augustine, because God has given him more than he has need of. He is able enough to give away money for things that are not at all necessary to him.

Do you wish me to prove this to you, my dear brethren? There is many a one who says: I cannot help the poor; I have no superfluous wealth; I want all I have for my own family. But, how is it that you give away so much for vanity's sake, or to gain some distinction, or to enjoy some pleasure? St. Bernard says: "They can find means enough to gratify their own curiosity, but they have nothing to help the poor with." You have money in abundance for gluttony, and drunkenness, and unnecessary entertainments, but you are not able to give a piece of bread to a poor hungry brother, and when he asks you for it, your only answer is, "I cannot." You are able enough to support yourself, although you spend the day in sleep, in paying and receiving visits, in playing cards and losing your money, although you are thus hindered from looking after your household, and lead an idle, and, what comes to the same thing, an unchristian life. And thus you cannot help a poor man who has to work hard from morning till night to earn a scanty subsistence for himself and his children. You say: I cannot. You have money enough to spend on costly hangings and furniture for your house, and to adorn your table with plate, but you can give nothing to the poor citizen who has neither chair, nor table, nor bed, nor house, nor anything to eat: I cannot, is your only answer. You can follow the latest fashions, and dress yourself and your children in a way that cannot fail to suggest immodest thoughts in others, and you can thus be the occasion of leaving to your children and descendants no other inheritance but extravagance in dress, so that they must in the end be reduced to beggary; and you are able to continue your extravagance, despite the hard times, when you have far more reason to go about in sackcloth and ashes like the Ninivites, in order to appease the anger of God. You and your daughters, I say, can do all this to show off before the world, but you have nothing for the poor of Jesus Christ, who suffer and lament, who have hardly a whole shoe or stocking or dress to put on. You have nothing for them but your, "I cannot." You can find money enough to fatten your horses and hounds, to gratify your passions and prepare an eternal hell for yourself, but you have nothing to feed the members of Jesus Christ and to purchase for yourself the joys of Heaven. You say: I cannot. I have no superfluous wealth to give to others. "O rich man, you are a liar," and are hateful to God!

Still, I can quite believe that you have nothing superfluous; for if you live in that way, how could you have anything left for others? A father once asked an account from his son, whom he had sent to study in a foreign country, of the money he had given him. Three times, he said, during the year, I have sent you money; a hundred and eighty crowns in all; what have you done with all that? Oh, father, said the son, we cannot live sparingly at the University; you must know that I have been obliged to borrow, in your name, a hundred and forty crowns more; I could not manage otherwise. What, said the father in a rage, have you spent three hundred and twenty crowns in one year? But consider, my dear father, said the other, that in a foreign land we cannot have anything without paying for it:

food, drink, lodging, clothing, washing, wood, light, books, pens, and paper cost a considerable sum. Show me your accounts, then, said the father. Willingly, answered the son; I am quite ready to do so. Beginning with the smallest item, I spent ten crowns on pens and ink. That will do, cried out the father; at that rate your expenses must certainly amount to more than three hundred crowns. Many rich people also make false accounts in that way, when there is question of giving charity to the poor. My income is barely sufficient, they say; I must spend so many hundreds yearly for new clothes; so many for entertainments, so many for gifts and presents, for servants and attendants, for balls and parties, for amusements and recreations, etc. Oh, enough, I must also cry out, I quite believe that you can get through your whole income in that way; if you had the treasures of the Indies, you could spend them, and still your vanity would not be satisfied. If you were satisfied with what really is required by your state of life, and by Christian humility, modesty, and mortification, you would have a great deal over and above your expenses; you might put by half of what you now spend in extravagant dressing, and in eating and drinking, and you could help many a poor person as well. But if you maintain that decency and necessity require you to live in a manner that any Christian would call wilfully extravagant, then, indeed, you will not have much left, and you make alms-giving impossible to yourself. When Holofernes, the general of the Assyrian army, was besieging Bethulia, he cut off the supply of water from the town, and let it flow away in different directions, whereby he reduced the citizens to great extremities, as we read in the 7th chapter of the Book of Judith. The devil often uses the same stratagem with the rich; he cuts off the canals; that is to say, he tries to exhaust their income by all kinds of unnecessary expenses, so that they may have nothing left for Christ and for His poor, and must always be forced to answer the petitions of the poor with the heartless, "I cannot." But they will see hereafter how far that excuse will help them before the judgment seat of God.

Good Christians who fear God and are concerned for the welfare of their souls, act in a totally different manner; to say nothing of many others of both sexes, who appear to have possessed earthly goods, only that they might act as fathers and mothers to the poor. Cardinal Bellarmine gives us a notable example in this way: In addition to giving two thousand scudi every year to the poor, he used to examine most carefully everything he had in the house, to see whether he had any clothes, plate, or bedding that he could do without; if he found anything of the kind, he immediately gave it to the poor. He had in his palace a sun-dial, the hand of which was broken; he ordered a new one to be made, but when he heard that it would cost several scudi, he said: Let it be, then, I do not want the sun-dial, but the poor are in want of the money. He once had a swollen leg, and was ordered by the doctor to wear a wider stocking, but he would not go to the expense of having one made, that he might not take away so much money from the poor, and thought that if he had one of his old stockings widened with a piece of cloth, it would do. His servants told him that the stocking was now eighteen years old, and that a new piece could not be sewn on to it. While this was going on, a young man came in to beg some charity for his poor mother; the Cardinal, who was so much afraid of spending a trifle for his own convenience, gave the young man two scudi at once. He never had a fire in his room, even in the depth of winter, and what he saved in that way he gave to the poor. A stranger who was suffering from hunger, once desired to have an audience with him; Bellarmine at once stood up from table and gave a share of his own frugal meal to the stranger. A poor citizen once asked him for twelve scudi that he was in want of;

the charitable Cardinal, who had no money at the time, gave his ring to the poor man with a note authorizing him to sell it.

On another occasion he gave his silver writing-materials to a poor person, and when he was Archbishop of Capua, he told his coachman to sell his horses and carriage, that he might help the poor. He used often to say to him, and to others also: "He who is generous towards God, will find that God will be much more generous to him."

Amadeus the Third, Duke of Savoy, was once asked by an ambassador if he had good hunting dogs. I have the best in the world, he answered, and I will show them to you to-morrow.

On the following day he brought the ambassador into his dining-hall, and pointed out to him a number of long tables at which many poor people were being fed. See, he said: "These are the dogs with which I go in chase of God and of Heaven. That is a better way for me to employ my bread and meat, than if I used it merely in pursuit of game." He certainly was a sensible and pious prince!

Ah, would that all wealthy Christians imitated these charitable men; so that if they were asked, where is your magnificence, your pomp and splendor, they could point to the poor, and say with truth: See, these are clad with it, that they may prepare a mantle of glory for me in Heaven! Where is the money you spend in carousing and feasting? These decent poor buy bread with it, that they may purchase for me the Bread of eternal life.

Where is your gold and silver plate? I have already sent it on to the next world by the hands of the poor, and there I will have it forever. But I am expecting too much altogether; I must come down a good deal in my demands. In ancient times it was the custom among the Romans for overseers to go around from house to house, in order to see if there were moths in the clothes, worms in the meat, or mice in the corn. How necessary it is to have such overseers in our days, when so many superfluous things, that ought to be given to the poor, are consumed by moths, worms, and mice! God help us! If many a poor servant and brother of Jesus Christ had the bread and meat that are given to lap-dogs, to cats, and to other pets, and that those animals refuse often to eat through sheer repletion; if they had the wine to drink that is often forced upon guests against their will at banquets, or that is spilled out on the ground; if they had the clothes that are mouldering away in wardrobes, because they are no longer in fashion; oh, certainly, poor brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, you would rejoice! And if you had the fourth part of the wood that is used during the bitter cold of winter, to make fires in the houses of the rich, for unnecessary parties, you could boil your weak broth, and warm your shivering limbs; if you had the twentieth part of the money that is so freely spent on such occasions, you could have bought bread with it, to keep the hunger from yourselves and your children; if the cast-off clothes that were used in unmeaning masquerades, in which so much money is spent, had been given to you, you might be better clad and protected against the cold! Such is the way of the world, even in the hardest times! Once, during a great scarcity in Rome, Augustus gave a splendid feast, at which he appeared as the god Apollo; the other guests also were dressed up to represent different deities; on this account it became a saying among the people, that the Romans were suffering from hunger because the gods and goddesses had eaten up all the food. These were heathens, my dear brethren! I must sigh, when I consider how Christians act, who are bound to honor Jesus Christ in the persons of His poor, and see how much money is spent on useless vanity, extravagance, and pleasure-seeking, while so many poor people are pining away in misery, as St. John Chrysostom sighed in his time. He says: "Your dog is fat and sleek, your servant is filled to repletion, but your Lord and His suffer hunger, your Christ has not the necessaries of life, and is perishing of want." In a word, there is money enough for worldly pomp; but when one is reminded of the command: "What is over and above, give to the poor," if Jesus Christ in the person of His poor asks for anything, then there is no bread left, the wine is all gone, the purse is empty; "I cannot," is the word, I want it myself. Oh, lying rich man! I could say the same to you in another way, what Socrates said to one of his pupils who was too fond of talking: "My boy, we must first learn to be silent, and then to speak." My dear Christians, I might say, let us first learn to economize, and then it will not be so difficult for us to give alms.

There are many others who can help the poor; they are richer than I, and the poor can apply to them. Such is the second excuse with which the poor are often sent away empty-handed.

But if there are people richer than you, who can better afford it, are you, therefore, excused from giving alms? If they acted like you, what refuge would poor Christians find? Would they not be turned away at once from every door? Others give them enough, you say; be it so, but leave out the word enough, for I do not think that many poor people would agree with you in using it, otherwise they would not be so badly off. But suppose that such is the case; are you, therefore, freed from the obligation of practising Christian charity and giving alms? Because others do their duty as they ought, does that excuse you from doing yours? Others can give alms, if they like, I cannot. Is that really the case? Then you may say also: Others can atone for their sins, but I cannot; others may gain the favor and friendship of God, but not I; others may earn for themselves a favorable sentence from the divine justice by their generous charity, but not I; others can save themselves from eternal death and damnation, but not I; others may send their treasures on to eternity before them, by the hands of the poor, but not I; others can gain Heaven, but not I. Do you really desire that? I think not, and therefore, you should help the poor according to your means.