“The winner! And still champ! By a clear knockout in the first round, the Fathers keep the belt… it was no contest from the start”.

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When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice.



St Gregory the Great

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All things belong to God, who is our Father and the Father of all things. We are all of the same family; all of us are brothers. Amongst brothers, it is best that all inherit equal portions.

St Gregory of Nyssa

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Share everything with your brother. Do not say, “It is private property”. If you share what is everlasting, you should be willing to share even more the things that do not last.

Didache

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Give a loaf of bread yourself; someone else can give a cup of wine, and another clothes. In this way, you can relieve one man’s poverty by your joint effort.

St Gregory of Nyssa

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The rich take what belongs to everyone, and claim that they have the right to own it, to monopolise it.

St Basil the Great

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I am often criticised for my continual attacks on the rich. Yes, that’s because the rich continually attack the poor.

St John Chrysostom

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It isn’t because the affluent are unable to provide food easily that men go hungry; it is because the affluent are cruel and inhuman. Every day, the Church here feeds 3,000 people. Besides this, the Church daily helps provide food and clothes for prisoners, the hospitalised, pilgrims, cripples, churchmen, and others. If only ten people were willing to do this, there wouldn’t be a single poor man left in town.

St John Chrysostom

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Those who oppress the poor must know that their sentence is heavier because of those they try to hurt. The more they press their power over these wretched lives, the more terrible their future condemnation and punishment will be.

St Isidore

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Some think that the Old Testament is stricter than the New, but they judge wrongly; they are fooling themselves. The Old Law did not punish the desire to hold on to wealth; it punished theft. Now, the rich man is not condemned for taking the property of others; rather, he is condemned for not giving his property away.

St Gregory the Great

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You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not just to the rich.

St Ambrose

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What keeps you from giving now? Isn’t the poor man there? Aren’t your own warehouses full? Isn’t the reward promised? The command is clear, the hungry man is dying now, the naked man is freezing now, the man in debt is beaten now, and you want him to wait until tomorrow? “I am not doing any harm”, you say. “I just want to keep what I own, that’s all”. Your own! You are like someone who sits down in a theatre and keeps every one else away, saying what is there for everyone’s use is his own. If everyone took only what he needed and gave the rest to those in need, there would be no such things as rich and poor. After all, didn’t you come into this life naked? Won’t you return to the earth naked?

St Basil the Great

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Who is the greedy man? One for whom plenty does not suffice. Who defrauds others? One who keeps for himself what belongs to everyone. Aren’t you greedy, don’t you defraud, when you keep for yourself what was given to give away? When someone steals a man’s clothes, we call him a thief. Shouldn’t we give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not?

St Basil the Great

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The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry person; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the person who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the person with no shoes; the money which you put in the bank belongs to the poor. You do wrong to everyone you could help, but fail to help.

St Basil the Great

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You may say, “Words are alright; but gold is better”. Talking to you is like talking to a lustful man about chastity… when one says something against him keeping a mistress, the mention of her name only goes to heat up his lust. How can I make you realise the misery of the poor? How can I make you understand that your wealth comes from their weeping?

St Basil the Great

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The rich eat bread that belongs to others more than it does to them. They live on stolen goods. What they pay comes from what they have seized. You dig up gold from the mines, only to bury it again. How many lives did you bury with it? This wealth is kept for whom? For your heir, who waits idly to receive it. It is not the poor who are cursed, but the rich. Scripture says of the rich, not of the poor, that the man who increases the price of corn will be cursed. Who is the wise man? He is the one who shows compassion on the poor, who sees the poor as natural members of his family.

St Ambrose

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The poor mine gold, but they are not allowed to keep it; they are forced to work for what they cannot own.

St Ambrose

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Wealth, which lead the men the wrong way so often, is seen less for its own qualities than for the human misery it stands for. The large rooms of which you are so proud are in fact your shame. They are big enough to hold crowds… and big enough to shut out the voice of the poor. True, even if the voice were heard it would be ignored… the poor man cries before your house, and you pay no attention. There is your brother naked and crying! Whilst you stand confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.

St Ambrose

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Feeding the hungry is a greater work than raising the dead.



St John Chrysostom

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Every family should have a room where Christ is welcome in the person of the hungry and thirsty stranger.

St John Chrysostom

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It’s about time that we put the lie to the smarmy pretence of religiosity put on by the Tea Party. They’re not Christians at all… they’re Sectarians, and it shows. They don’t worship as real Christians do, they don’t believe what real Christians hold, and they don’t do the good deeds that real Christians should perform. They’re nothing but Mammon worshippers who shout out, “Lord, Lord”… we all know what the Scripture says, “Not all those who say, ‘Lord, Lord’, will gain the Kingdom of Heaven”. That’s because American Sectarianism is a false construct, a religious apologia for the American Experiment, which has morphed into a leering and nasty rationale for the most leprous form of greed that has ever walked the earth… American entrepreneurial capitalism.

Do ask the Serbs, Palestinians, Iraqis, and Afghanis about the joys of this system. Especially ask the Afghanis… the USA was instrumental in placing the Taliban in power, then, ten years later, it toppled them, because their erstwhile clients attacked them. Think very seriously on this… had the USA not pressured Russia into stopping aid to the DRA, the Taliban would have been defeated… there would have been no 9/11! In short, we owe the present wars and the attacks on our homeland to the feckless policies of the neocons, and the Tea Party is nothing but their stalking horse… it has no life of its own.

If you are an Orthodox Christian, reflect on the fact that the Fathers point their fingers at you if support the Tea Party…

Thief! Miser! Hypocrite!

It’s time to get your mind right… you can support the Fathers or you can support a bunch of Sectarian pukes… which is it? You can follow Christ or you can follow Mammon. If you follow Beck and Palin, you’re not following our Lord, “for what accord hath Christ with Belial?” Don’t forget, Beck’s a Christian apostate, and Palin’s a Holy Roller heretic… for God’s sake, Low Church Reformation Proddies such as the Mennonites are superior to Sectarian Mormons and Pentecostalists (and most of them aren’t teabaggers).

Whither thou goest? I can’t make up your mind for you…

BMD

Editor’s Postscript:

A friend sent me the following:

Lately, you’re like Popeye after he downed a can or two of grade-A spinach! I guess it’s true what they say… when the going gets tough, the tough get going! I’m going to hoist one and vicariously “clink” it with you… Ваше здоровье!

Thank you! We all have to stand up and be LOUD N’ PROUD! Of course, it’ll mean that the konvertsy (amongst Orthodox) will let loose the internet trolls and innuendoes, as they are all fanatic Tea Party supporters. They will become even worse than they are at present.

We have a choice… stand up like free men and women, or lie down like slaves so that Corporate America can scourge us (and worse). If you choose the latter, don’t forget to pack a LARGE container of Vaseline.

BMD