Do you feel upset when you drop a plate or a pot, and it smashes into tiny pieces on the ground? Do you feel anxious when a strong wind is blowing, and you can hear the tiles on your roof coming loose? Do you feel worried about the crops in your field when it rains so hard that the ground is flooded? Do you feel frightened at night when you hear a door click or squeak, wondering if robbers have come to steal your goods? To feel those things is quite normal. Yet the challenge of our faith is that we become so indifferent to material possessions that nothing of this kind can concern us. Of course while we remain on this earth, we must have plates on which to serve our food, roofs above our heads to keep us dry, crops growing in the fields to feed us, and some basic pieces of furniture in our homes. But if we work hard day by day to the best of our abilities, we can be sure that God will provide what we need. And if something is broken, lost, or stolen, God will decide if and when to replace it.

Share what you have, lest you lose what you have. Spend what you possess on the needs of others in order to keep what you possess. Do not cling to what you own, lest it be taken away from you. Do not hoard your treasures, lest they rot and become worthless. Entrust all your wealth to God, because then it is protected against all who want to steal or destroy it. Do you understand what these injunctions mean? Or do they sound like nonsense to you? To the person without faith, they mean nothing. But to the person with faith, they make perfect sense. Faith tells us that God alone can supply the material things on which we depend. He gives some people more than they need, not that they can enjoy great luxury, but to make them stewards of his bounty on behalf of orphans, the sick, and the crippled. If they are bad stewards, keeping this bounty to themselves, they will become poor in spirit, and their hearts will fill with misery. If they are good stewards, they will become rich in spirit, their hearts filling with joy.

And everything will help to render that day fearful. Then, “shall be gathered together,” He says, “all nations,” that is, the whole race of men. “And He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd his sheep.” For now they are not separated, but all mingled together, but the division then shall be made with all exactness. And for a while it is by their place that He divides them, and makes them manifest; afterwards by the names He indicates the dispositions of each, calling the one kids, the other sheep, that He might indicate the unfruitfulness of the one, for no fruit will come from kids; and the great profit from the other, for indeed from sheep great is the profit, as well from the milk, as from the wool, and from the young, of all which things the kid is destitute.

But while the brutes have from nature their unfruitfulness, and fruitfulness, these have it from choice, wherefore some are punished, and the others crowned. And He does not punish them, until He has pleaded with them; wherefore also, when He has put them in their place, He mentions the charges against them. And they speak with meekness, but they have no advantage from it now; and very reasonably, because they passed by a work so much to be desired. For indeed the prophets are everywhere saying this, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice,” and the lawgiver by all means urged them to this, both by words, and by works; and nature herself taught it.

But mark them, how they are destitute not of one or two things only, but of all. For not only did they fail to feed the hungry, or clothe the naked; but not even did they visit the sick, which was an easier thing.

And mark how easy are His injunctions. He said not, “I was in prison, and you set me free; I was sick, and you raised me up again;” but, “ye visited me,” and, “ye came unto me.” And neither in hunger is the thing commanded grievous. For no costly table did He seek, but what is needful only, and His necessary food, and He sought in a suppliant’s garb, so that all things were enough to bring punishment on them; the easiness of the request, for it was bread; the pitiable character of Him that requests, for He was poor; the sympathy of nature, for He was a man; the desirableness of the promise, for He promised a kingdom; the fearfulness of the punishment, for He threatened hell. The dignity of the one receiving, for it was God, who was receiving by the poor; the surpassing nature of the honor, that He vouchsafed to condescend so far; His just claim for what they bestowed, for of His own was He receiving. But against all these things covetousness once for all blinded them that were seized by it; and this though so great a threat was set against it.

For further back also He says, that they who receive not such as these shall suffer more grievous things than Sodom; and here He says, “Inasmuch as you did it not unto one of the least of these my brethren, you did it not unto me.” What sayest Thou? they are Your brethren; and how dost Thou call them least. Why, for this reason they are brethren, because they are lowly, because they are poor, because they are outcast. For such does He most invite to brotherhood, the unknown, the contemptible, not meaning by these the monks only, and them that have occupied the mountains, but every believer; though he be a secular person, yet if he be hungry, and famishing, and naked, and a stranger, His will is he should have the benefit of all this care. For baptism renders a man a brother, and the partaking of the divine mysteries. — Homily on Matthew XXV.

Now, beloved, all these things have I written to thee because in what was said before, that is in the former discourse concerning faith, I have shown thee that in faith may be placed the foundation of this covenant in which we are established; and in this second discourse which I have written to thee I have reminded thee that all the law and the prophets depend upon two commandments, those which our Savior spoke, and in these two commandments are included all the law and the prophets. And in the law faith is included, and by faith true love is established, which is from those two commandments, that after a man loves the Lord his God he shall cherish his neighbor as himself.

Now hear, beloved, concerning the love which is produced from those two commandments. For when our Life-giver came He showed the eagerness of love, for He said to His disciples: “This is My commandment that ye love one another.” And again He said to them: “A new commandment I give you, that ye love one another.” And again, when making clear concerning love, thus He warned them: “Love your enemies, and bless him who curses you; pray for those who deal hardly with you and persecute you.” And this again He said to them: “If ye love him who loves you what is your reward? For if thou lovest him who loves thee thus also do the Gentiles, who loves them they love him.” Again our Life-giver said: “If ye do good to him who does good unto you what is your reward? thus also do the publicans and sinners. But ye, because ye are called sons of God who is in heaven, be ye like Him who showeth mercy also upon those who renounce goodness.” Again our Saviour said: “Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you; loose, and ye shall loosed; give, and it shall be given you.” Again He spoke and put fear in us: “Unless ye forgive men who sin against you their sins, neither will the Father forgive you.” For thus He warned and said: “If thy brother shall sin against thee, forgive him; and even if he shall sin against thee seven times in one day, forgive him.“

Turn ye, O congregations, and come. Let us all praise Him that is born of the Virgin. For that being the glory and image before the ages of the Godhead, He yet became a fellow-sufferer with us of poverty. Being the exceeding magnifical power [and] image of God, He took on the form of a slave. He that putteth on the light as a garment, consorted with men as one that is vile. He that is hymned by cherubim and by myriad angels, as a citizen on earth doth He live. He that being before (all) maketh all creation alive, was born of the Holy Virgin, in order that He might make alive once more the first created.

Christ our God took on [Himself] to begin life as man, being yet a sharer of the [life] without beginning of God the Father; in order to lift up unto the beginningless beginning of the Godhead man that was fallen.

And He took the form of a slave from the Holy Virgin, in order to call us up to the glorified dominical image. He put on the outward shape made of clay, that He might make [us] sharers of the heavenly form. He sat in the lap of the Holy Virgin, that He might place us on the right hand in the intimacy of His Father. In a vile body was He; and by means of the same He was laid in a tomb, that He might manifest us heirs of eternal life. In the womb of the Holy Virgin was He, the incomprehensible one, confined; in order that He might renew the Adam destroyed through sin.

And the same says David again: “Lift up your gates, ye rulers; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall come in.” For the everlasting gates are the heavens. But because the Word descended invisible to created things, He was not made known in His descent to them. Because the Word was made flesh, He was visible in His ascension; and, when the powers saw Him, the angels below cried out to those who were on the firmament: “Lift up your gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting gates, that the King of glory may come in.” And when they marvelled and said: “Who is this?” those who had already seen Him testified a second time: “The Lord strong and mighty, he is the King of glory.”

And being raised from the dead and exalted at the Father’s right hand, He awaits the time appointed by the Father for the judgment, when all enemies shall be put under Him. Now the enemies are all those who were found in apostasy, angels and archangels and powers and thrones, who despised the truth. And the prophet David himself says thus: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” And that He ascended thither, whence He had come down, David says: “From the end of heaven is his going forth, and his cessation even at the end of heaven.” Then he signifies his judgment: “And there is none that shall be hid from his heat.” — Paragraphs 84 and 85.

Yet the arrangement of the world rests upon the rationale for this evangelical number: for we recognize the four seasons that the year progresses through and the four corners of the earth that the four guardian angels are assigned to, referring to the Apocalypse.

And although there are said to be four gospels because of the number of the evangelists, even though there is only gospel among them all, as the Lord said: “And this gospel will be preached through the whole globe.” He did not say gospels but “gospel“. The apostle described this too when he says: “If anyone has preached to you a gospel other than what you have received, let them be accursed.” Hence, it is plain that there are certain four books of the gospels, but one gospel is counted in these four books. And for that reason one must not be prejudiced should we sometimes say —gospels— because of the number of evangelists or when we name the gospels in this way as the most important books or when we designate the number of the evangelists according to the usual custom of the majority. Indeed we both confess and believe that there is one true gospel according to the authority of the Lord or even the apostle. — Prologue, Section 10 and 11.