Saint Gregory Nazianzen (330-390)
Bishop and Doctor of the Church
On love for the poor, 8, 14 ; PG 35, 867, 875
“When you give a banquet, invite the poor”
Let us keep an eye on our neighbor’s well-being, whether in good health or struck by sickness, with as much concern as we do our own. For “we are all one in the Lord” (Rom 12:5), whether rich or poor, slaves or free, well or sick. There is only one head for all of us, the principal of all things – Christ (Col 1:18). What the members of a body are for each other, every one of us is for each of the others. So we shouldn’t either neglect or abandon those who have fallen into the state of weakness that haunts us all. Rather than taking delight in being in good health, it is better to sympathize with the misfortunes of our poor neighbors… They are in God’s image just as we are and, in spite of their apparent decline, they have maintained their fidelity to this image better than we have. In them, the inner man has put on the same Christ and they have received the same “first-fruits of the Spirit” (2Cor 5:5). They have the same laws, the same, commandments, the same covenants, the same assemblies, the same mysteries and the same hope. Christ died equally for them, “he who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). They, who have been deprived of many blessings here below, have a share in the inheritance of life the heavenly life. They are sharers in the sufferings of Christ and will be so in his glory.