Tell me, if anyone gave you gold dust, would you not with all precaution keep it fast, being on your guard against losing any of it, and suffering loss? How much more cautiously then will you observe that not a crumb falls from you of what is more precious than gold and precious stones.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Catechesis V.21
If you could see how many daggers, spears, and arrows are aimed at you every moment, you would be glad to come to the sacrament as often as you can. The only reason we go about so securely and heedlessly is that we neither imagine nor believe that we are in the flesh, in the wicked world, or under the kingdom of the devil.
Martin Luther, Large Catechism, V.82
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.
“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here”:
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”
“Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.
George Herbert, Love (iii)
For although you have not actually committed all these crimes, as far as you are concerned, you have nevertheless permitted your neighbors to languish and perish in their misfortune. It is just as if I saw someone who was struggling in deep water…and I could stretch out my hand to pull him out and save him, and yet I did not do so. How would I appear before all the world except as a murderer…?
Martin Luther, Large Catechism, I.192
And it occurs to me that Jesus couldn’t have cared less about the cause of the leper or the rights of the leper. But when there was a leper in his path he did not walk around him, like the priest walking on the opposite side of the road from the man set upon by thieves, on his way to Jerusalem to preach his famous sermon on compassion. Jesus stopped. And healed. And loved. Not causes, but people.
Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season, Chapter IX
My opinion is that it is a very extraordinary thing for anyone to be upset by such a topic. Why should anyone be shattered by the thought of hell? It is not compulsory for anyone to go there. Those who do, do so by their own choice, and against the will of God, and they can only get into hell by defying and resisting all the work of Providence and grace. It is their own will that takes them there, not God’s. In damning them He is only ratifying their own decision – a decision which He has left entirely to their own choice.
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, Part Two, Chapter I.vi
We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.
St. Justin Martyr, First Apology 66
One is the table that is prepared for rich and poor alike. And though a person may be rich, yet to this table the rich can give nothing. And should another be poor, this one shall have no less honor because of poverty in regard to the things which here belong to all. For this favor is from God, and what wonder that it should be for the rich and the poor alike? For the same is the table that is prepared for the poor person, sitting waiting for alms, as for the emperor adorned with the diadem and clad in the royal purple, to whom the rule of the world is given. Such are the gifts of God who gives, not according to dignity but according to the will and the mind of each.
To this table therefore let the poor and the emperor come with equal confidence and with equal profit; and here more often the poor will be the richer. And why? Because the emperor is involved in a thousand affairs, and like a ship is tossed hither and thither and brought close to many sins. But the poor have to think solely of the need for food, and such a life is passed in tranquility and freedom from responsibility, like a ship secure in harbor; and so a poor person approaches much more confidently to the sacred table.
Again, in the feasts of the outside world the poor may be sad and unhappy, the rich festive and rejoicing; and not because of food only but also because of dress. For what happens with regard to food happens also with regard to clothing. For when a needy person sees a rich one clad in fine clothing, the needy one is stricken and fancies himself the unhappiest of all. But here this is taken away, for all alike are clothed with the one saving garment: “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).
St. Leo the Great
When I disobeyed in ignorance Thy fatherly glory,
I wasted in iniquities the riches that Thou gavest me.
Wherefore, I cry to Thee with the voice of the prodigal son, saying,
I have sinned before Thee, O compassionate Father,
Receive me repentant, and make me as one of Thy hired servants.
Kontakion for Sunday of the Prodigal Son
I have drunk and I have diced, gold pieces I gave with delight
to harlots with eyes the darkness of the night.
I have done what I wanted, acted out my desires,
I am now at the end of what I began.
Where are my friends that I drank with?
Why am I now all alone?
from The Prodigal Son, Benjamin Britten; libretto: William Plomer
Locus Communis