Main news for 27 May 2024

Charity was from the beginning one of the main services of church. It should be noted that for the antique world such position directed to support the weak, was at least, unusual. The ancient world was quite tough, and indulgence to the weak, or especially to help them was not at all a hallmark of the societies of the antiquity. Of course, there were always some exceptions, but they only confirmed the rule. It is particularly the Church at the end could change the consciousness of the society as regards to mercy, charity and support for the weak. But it wasn’t for the Church an end in itself? For, it was created not at all as an organization of charity, but as a community of people living in the Kingdom. And charity was only the external demonstration of this life of the Kingdom. It was the model of the relations in the Kingdom, applied to the non transformed world.

The apostle describes it in three words: more blessed to give, than to receive. And it is not at all a question here that the Kingdom is made up of altruists only: because altruism, in fact, is nothing else than the reverse of egoism. The fact is that the Kingdom is given to each free of charge, completely without merit. And all the efforts, which are required to man, the purpose of these efforts is not to receive the Kingdom, but to hold it.

Man receives the Kingdom free of charge, and it cannot happen differently. And mostly he obtains it thanks to the testimony of the one who received it earlier. Testimony is in fact a donation, the donation of this Kingdom, which he also received formerly as a gift. Such is the mechanism of the spread of the Kingdom in the world - through testimonies, from heart to heart. Indeed, when the Savior says that it is necessary to seek for the Kingdom, He adds: "and all these things shall be added unto you", meaning by "all these things" what man needs for life in the non transformed world.

And the Church in its life recreated this model, testifying not only of the Kingdom as the reality of the transformed world, but also the Kingdom as what defines the life of the Church here and now: the initiation into the Kingdom and into the Church gave to man all the necessity not to starve, and the one who had not this necessity, received it as help, from the Church that testified to him about the Kingdom. It is not of course about charity in itself, which could have turn to an end in itself, but about that the man who found the Kingdom would not die of hunger on its doorstep.