Vigils reading – 32nd Sunday

LET US GIVE GLADLY

From a commentary by St Paulinus of Nola1

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What have you, asks the Apostle, that you have not received? This

means, beloved, that we should not be miserly, regarding possessions of our

own, but should rather invest what has been entrusted to us. We have been

entrusted with the administration and use of temporal wealth for the common

good, not with the everlasting ownership of private property. If you accept the

fact that ownership on earth is only for a time, you can earn eternal possessions

in heaven.

Call to mind the widow who forgot herself in her concern for the poor, and

thinking only of the life to come, gave away all her means of subsistence, as the

judge himself bears witness. Others, he says, have given of their superfluous

wealth, but she, possessed of only two small coins and more needy perhaps than

many of the poor – though in spiritual riches she surpassed all the wealthy – she

thought only of the world to come, and had such a longing for heavenly treasure

that she gave away, all at once, whatever she had that was derived from the earth

and destined to return there.

Let us then invest with the Lord what he has given us, for we have nothing

that does not come from him; we are dependent upon him for our very

existence. And we ourselves particularly, who have a special and greater debt,

since God not only created us but purchased us as well – what can we regard as

our own when we do not possess even ourselves?

But let us rejoice that we have been bought at a great price, the price of the

Lord’s own blood, and that because of this we are no longer worthless slaves.

For there is a freedom that is baser than slavery, namely, freedom from justice.

Whoever has that kind of freedom is a slave of sin and a prisoner of death. So let

us give back to the Lord the gifts he has given us; let us give to him who receives

in the person of every poor man or woman. Let us give gladly, I say, and great joy

will be ours when we receive his promised reward.