But what kind of rich men? Behold, I do not know whether someone from the sidelines, clothed in rags, rejoiced and smiled when it was said that a rich man does not enter the kingdom of heaven. "I," he said, "will enter. These rags will serve me; those who harm us, who oppress us, will not enter." Indeed, such people will not enter, but see whether you will enter. What if you are poor and greedy, what if you are oppressed by poverty and burn with avarice? Therefore, if you are such, whoever you are, poor man, you did not want to be rich, but you could not. "Peace," he says, "on earth to men of goodwill." Therefore, God does not look at your wealth, but at your will. Consider what your heart is full of, not what your chest is empty of. So if you are of a bad life, with a bad desire, withdraw from the number of God's poor; you will not be among those of whom it is said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Behold, I find such a rich man—from whose comparison you boasted and dared to aspire to the kingdom of heaven—I find a poor man in spirit, that is, humble, pious, following the will of God, and, if he has perhaps lost some of that abundance, immediately saying: "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord." O gentle rich man, not resisting the will of God, truly rejoicing from that land of the living! For "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." But you may be insolent, having nothing in your storeroom, yet in the fantasy of desires you dream of vain treasures. Rather, this man, this rich man will enter; against you, the kingdom of heaven will be closed, because it will be closed against the greedy, against the proud and covetous. "But indeed the widow who put two mites into the treasury was poor!" Yes indeed: that widow was poor, but Zacchaeus was rich. Did the widow enter, and Zacchaeus was excluded? Rather, the kingdom is truly of the liberated, because it is given equally to both the poor and the rich. In that kingdom, Zacchaeus will not be richer than that widow, even if he gave more here than she did. For he gave half of his goods to the poor, she gave two mites. They had different means, but they had equal charity.
Paul teaches the rich the way by which entry is made into the kingdom of heaven.
So the rich man enters the kingdom of heaven. Listen to how he is described; how the way is made for him, how he is called to enter, listen those of you who possess worldly wealth, listen and do something before the flood, listen to the apostle writing to Timothy: Command the rich of this age. And as if he had asked what [or what] the Lord commanded: "Sell all you have, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come with me, follow the Lord" - the Lord had already commanded this: let him hold Christ as the commander, who holds Him as the promise-giver. Whoever wishes, let him do it; let him undertake what was heard from the Lord. To others the apostle says - and through the apostle the Lord: Or do you seek proof of the Christ who speaks in me? What then? Command, he says, the rich of this age, what is the head of evil, what is feared in riches, not to be arrogant. Let us briefly describe this. The rich man easily says, "Bad servant"; he speaks arrogantly and, unless he says so, perhaps does not rule his house. Often he rules more with a terrible word than with a cruel blow. He says this, perhaps the necessity of ruling the house compels him to say it: let him not say it inwardly, let him not say it in his heart, let him not say it in the eyes and ears of God; let him not think himself better because he is rich; let him consider the frailty of his flesh, with garments laid aside. What shall I say, brothers, what shall I say? Let him consider, if all those external ornaments were removed, what kind of rich man he could be, because he is flesh and blood, because he came from the same lump from Adam and Eve, but the rich man cannot consider this: it is difficult to take away all those ornaments from him. It is not to be desired that they be taken away, it was to be desired that they be cast off. Therefore, it is difficult to persuade him what he is, surrounded by all these things. Let him consider himself in his mother's womb, once naked and needy, just like that poor man; he received other clothing upon being born; what he received will remain here, as it was not brought here. Thinking this, the rich man is poor in spirit within, that is, he breathes out pride, he humbles himself. And if he has a terrible face towards those whom it is necessary for him to rule, yet within he has a humble heart before the eyes of God, and he knows with what conscience he strikes his breast. But see if what follows appears in them. For he did not say this: Do not be arrogant, and then stopped; for every rich man would respond to you: "God knows that I am not arrogant; and if I shout, and if I say something harsh, God knows my conscience, that I say these things out of necessity of ruling, not to exalt myself over others" - as if therefore more powerful, because richer. God sees these things within. Let us see what follows. He says, Do not be arrogant, nor hope in the uncertainty of riches. Even here he may still be allowed to speak; and whether he speaks the truth, God alone can see, whether he does not trust in what he has, whether he does not place his hope there; for it follows: But in the living God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
Since the time is short, let us be rich in good works.
"And then what?" he says. Let them be rich in good works. This already emerges and is visible to the eyes of men; it cannot be hidden. Either it is done and appears, or it is not done and there is no way to lie. Let them be rich in good works, generous, and willing to share. Humility is apparent there. You have: let it be shared with him who does not have. Share. And for what good? Let them store up a good foundation for themselves for the future, so that they may obtain true life. If they are such rich people, let them be secure: when the last day comes, they will be found in the ark, they will be in the building, they will not belong to the perdition of the flood; let them not fear because they are rich. And if he is young and cannot control himself, he is allowed to marry. Will the last day find him among those of whom it was said: "They were marrying"? It will not find him so, if it finds him as the apostle says. Behold how he joins them in the ark who feared. For the apostle says: "From now on, brothers, the time is short." And what follows? "It remains that those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who buy as though they did not possess, and those who weep as though they did not weep, and those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, and those who use this world as though they did not use it: for the form of this world is passing away." I want you to be without anxiety. Brothers, if you want to be secure, do not base your happiness on these things. And if some duty or necessity of weakness compels you to make use of these things, do not trust in them, do not cling to them, reckon them among transitory and temporal things. For all these things pass away like a river of things. You see that all those adversities that press upon human matters cut down all these superfluous things.
Bad times run!
Brothers, every day there is grumbling against God: "Bad times and hard times." Nonsense is being punished, as we were saying: "Bad times, hard times, troublesome times"; and yet gifts are being given. They are bad, they are hard: let them correct them. You call the time hard? How much harder are you, who are not corrected by hard times! Such insanity of pomp still thrives, such superfluities are still coveted! Greed has no end, not even when it is cut. I ask, with what things, with what actions do they wish for prosperity, for what security do they desire? Let some security be given: we will see how many diseases will emerge, how much luxury will overflow, greater than now. Security and peace, for the sake of theaters and organs and flutes and pantomimes! You wish to misuse what you desire, therefore you do not receive it. Listen, listen to the apostolic voice, much freer than mine is - for I know how many I offend; consider me more timid: I do not dare to harm. flictum Listen to what you do not want to hear from the apostle: You desire and do not have - these are apostolic words -; you kill and covet, and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight, and you do not have; you ask, and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, that you may spend it on your passions. Certainly, he did not flatter anyone; in many rotting parts, the iron reached to the living flesh. Let us be healed, brothers, let us correct ourselves, let us correct ourselves: he who came and was mocked is coming back, and he is still mocked because he came; he is coming again, and there will be no time for mocking. My brothers, let us correct ourselves: behold, better times will come, and behold, they will come now. What do you hope for here? Change your place, change your dwelling: "Lift up your hearts." What do you hope for here? The human race has arisen, it has reached a certain youth - these things flourished in the world -, it is declining into old age, it is now near decrepitude. What do you hope for here? Seek something else. Are you seeking rest? You seek a good thing: seek it in its own land. One place is where he descended to you, another is where he commands you to ascend. Do not hope for times other than those read in the Gospel; I do not say this or that: the books of the Lord are on sale every day, the reader reads; buy for yourself and read when you have time, or rather make time: for it is better to make time for this than for trifles. Read what has been foretold up to the end of the world, and believe yourself, do not flatter yourself. Things are not bad because Christ has come, but because they were harsh and bad, he came who would console.
Christ our physician.
Listen, my brothers: it was necessary that such times should come, distressing and harsh. What would we have done if such a great comforter had not been present? The human race was bound to suffer gravely. Like a physician taking charge of one great patient, from Adam until the end, that is, taking charge of the entire wounded human race - since from the time we were born, from the time we were cast out of paradise, indeed illness has existed, but at the end it was bound to be greater, and perhaps near to health for some, near to death for others. Therefore, when the human race was suffering illness, that great physician taking charge of the patient, lying in a certain great bed, the entire world, just like a most skilled physician, observed the times of the ill one, and saw and foresaw what was to come, since he himself managed that same illness on account of his justice to avenge our sin. Therefore, during the milder times of our illness, the physician himself first sent his servants to inspect us, he sent the prophets. They spoke, they preached; he cured some through them and healed them. They predicted a certain great fever to come in the final stages of the illness, and a certain great agitation of this patient, which would require the presence of the physician himself. Therefore, our physician said this: "In the last time, the sick will be more strongly and vigorously agitated, for whose treatment I must come at that time; I will restore, I will comfort, I will exhort, I will promise, I will heal the believer." Thus it was. He came, he became man, sharing in our mortality, so that we might be able to share in his immortality. And still the patient is agitated. And when he breathes heavily in fever and greatly burns, he says to himself: "Since this physician came, I suffer harsher fevers, I am more severely agitated. Oh tremendous burns, from where did they come to me? I think he entered the house with an unlucky step." Thus say all those who still suffer from vanity. Why do they still suffer from vanity? Because they do not want to receive the potion of sobriety from him. You see those miserable ones being agitated by their cares and various tribulations and terrors of the world, and saying: "Since Christ came, we suffer these times; since there are Christians, the world fails in everything." Oh foolish patient, not because the physician came has your illness become graver, but the physician came because your illness was bound to become graver: he foresaw it, he did not cause it; he came, however, to comfort you and make you truly healthy.
Let us be cured willingly so that we are not tormented unwillingly.
For what is taken from you, what is removed but the superfluous? For you were craving harmful things; the things you craved were not beneficial for your fever. Is the physician harsh because he snatches harmful fruits from the patient's hand? What does he take from you but the dangerous indulgence which you desired to indulge to the destruction of your innards? And this, that you groan and murmur, pertains to his medicine. He wishes to cure you, lest you suffer unwillingly. The times must be harsh. Why? So that earthly happiness is not loved. It is entirely necessary - it is medicinal - that this life be disturbed, so that another life is loved. Behold, if there is so much lethargy still clinging to earthly things, still madness in the theaters, what if everything smiled upon vanity, what if your trivialities were struck nowhere? Behold, so many bitterness mixed in, and the world is still sweet. Come on, my most beloved brothers, I beseech you by the Lord, by his cross, by his blood, by his love, by his humility, by his majesty, I beseech and adjure you, not to hear these things in vain, not to think we stand in this place truly as if for a spectacle. His mercy knows, under whose eyes we thus tremble, that we are led by the duty of love, to say these things to you, and compelled by that fear by which we know we ourselves shall give an account to the Lord for all things.