Avarice (“the love of money”) is the worship of idols, the daughter of unbelief, a lying excuse for illness, a foreboder of old age, a harbinger of drought, and a herald of hunger. The lover of money sneers at the Gospel and is a willful transgressor. He who has attained love scatters his money. But he who says that he lives for love and for money has deceived himself.

After all, the money grubber sees himself only as the body. That is why he seeks to extend his life on earth as much as possible, revealing his madness in this journey toward a kind of endless duration here on earth. Therefore, the passion of avarice is linked with a great cowardice. A man of avarice abdicates from anyone, in order to extend his life. On the contrary, the one who is free from greed has great courage, knowing that the soul is infinitely more valuable than the body and that the soul is immortal. He can give up everything in the world, even the body, for an unblemished soul.

He who overcame this passion cuts off his worries. The one related to the will of avarice will never pray cleanly because avarice is the lack of faith.

Based on Saint John of the Ladder, p. Dumitru Stăniloae

A snapshot from the warehouse of Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos.

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