Vigils Reading – St Leo the Great

LET US NOT BE WEARY IN DOING GOOD

From a sermon by St Leo the Great6

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Men’s liberality is not happy, nor their thriftiness to be commended, if their riches are of benefit to themselves alone; if no poor folks are helped by their goods, no sick persons nourished; if out of the abundance of their great possessions the captive gets not ransom, nor the stranger comfort, nor the exile relief. Rich men of this kind are needier than all the needy. For they lose those returns which they might have forever, and while they gloat over the brief and not always free enjoyment of what they possess, they are not fed upon the bread of justice nor the sweets of mercy: outwardly splendid, they have no light within: of things temporal they have abundance, but utter lack of things eternal: for they inflict starvation on their own souls, and bring them to shame and nakedness by spending upon heavenly treasures none of these things which they put into their earthly storehouses…

For although a man be full of faith, and chaste, and sober, and adorned with other still greater decorations, yet if he is not merciful, he cannot deserve mercy: for the Lord says, blessed are the merciful, for God shall have mercy upon them. And when the Son of Man comes in His Majesty and is seated on His glorious throne, and all nations being gathered together, division is made between the good and the bad, for what shall they be praised who stand upon the fight except for works of benevolence and deeds of love which Jesus Christ shall reckon as done to Himself? For He who has made man’s nature His own, has separated Himself in nothing from man’s humility. And what objection shall be made to those on the left except for their neglect of love, their inhuman harshness, their refusal of mercy to the poor? As if those on the right had no other virtues those on the left no other faults. But at the great and final day of judgment large-hearted liberality and ungodly meanness will be counted of such importance as to outweigh all other virtues and all other shortcomings, so that for the one men shall gain entrance into the Kingdom, for the other they shall be sent into eternal fire.

Let no one therefore… flatter himself on any merits of a good life, if works of charity be wanting in him, and let him not trust in the purity of his body, if he be not cleansed by the purification of almsgiving. For almsgiving wipes out sin, kills death, and extinguishes the punishment of perpetual fire. But he who has not been fruitful therein, shall have no indulgence from the great Recompenser, as Solomon says, He that closes his ears lest he should hear the weak, shall himself call upon the Lord, and there shall be none to hear him. And hence Tobias also, while instructing his son in the precepts of godliness, says, Give alms of your substance, and turn not your face from any poor man: so shall it come to pass that the face of God shall not be turned from you…

While we have time therefore, as the Apostle says, let us do that which isgoodtoallmen,andespeciallytothemthatareofthehouseholdoffaith. Butlet us not be weary in doing good; for in His own time we shall reap. And so the present life is the time for sowing, and the day of retribution is the time of harvest, when everyone shall reap the fruit of his seed according to the amount of his sowing. And no one shall be disappointed in the produce of that harvesting, because it is the heart’s intentions rather than the sums expended that will be reckoned up