Two beggars
March 10, 2008, 8:37 am
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
See what follows: “Blessed are the merciful for God will show them mercy.” Do and it will be done; do it for another and it will be done for you. You both abound and need: you abound in temporal goods, you need eternal goods. You hear someone begging; you yourself are God’s beggar. The beggar begs of you, and you beg of God. What you do with the one who begs of you, God will do with the one who begs of him. You are both full and empty. Fill the empty man from your abundance so that your emptiness may be filled from God’s abundance. (Augustine, Sermon 53, 5; PL 38, 366)
Great post. I highly recommend Kelly Johnson’s recent book, The Fear of Beggars (Wm. B. Eerdmans). It’s a history-cum-reflection on Christian economic thinking in the light of attitudes toward begging. We need this kind of reminder that notions about “the undeserving poor” are so much sado-moralism, and that if we applied these ideas elsewhere, none of us would end up in the Kingdom. Read Johnson’s book. I beg you.
If there had been subways in Hippo, and if St. Augustine had had to ride them, I am sure he would have felt differently about beggars.
David: You mean if he were a New Yorker?