Fr Ben Garren

When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor. —Saint Basil the Great

Dear Siblings in Christ,

Our prayers of confession consistently require us to repent not only what we have done but also what we have left undone. We tend to focus on the sins that are done, the active sins. This is true both in where our personal reflections go but also in what sins we most readily call out in others.

The early church was exceptionally more concerned about our passive sins, where we fail to engage the work we are called to do with the gifts and talents we are given. Where we have become exceptionally focused on the person stealing clothes…they were much more focused on the person whose closets were bursting.

This quote from Saint Basil, whose feast is today, truly asks us to rethink our lives. He doesn’t ask us to reflect on what we have that can be given to others. He asks us to look at where we have much and understand that our largesse is, in fact, an act of theft. That our excess is a mark of how we are stealing from those who have none.

As we enter into a new year a Christian resolution would be to look at one of the parts of our lives where we are hoarding what another may desperately need.

Pax,

—Ben