Angelic Monks and Earthly Men<\/em><\/a>, \u201cCistercian monks \u2026 had to deal with the \u2018embarrassment of riches\u2019 — and how limited were the solutions proposed to escape from this wealth, unwanted and unsearched for! No alternatives existed, other than practising works of charity towards those rejected by ordinary society or giving up the initial purity of their observance.\u201d Now that would be a nice problem to have.<\/p>\nThe situation of our government today is different than the Cistercians in the thirteenth century, of course, but there is a lesson to be learned: The austerity needed to get our budget under control would require serious self-sacrifice, but one of the results of financial health is the option to responsibly practice \u201cworks of charity towards those rejected by ordinary society.\u201d We could then help those in need out of our surplus, rather than through deficits.<\/p>\n
In this we find a biblical model of social equality. As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, \u201cI do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened; but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack — that there may be equality\u201d (2 Corinthians 8:13-14). If our financial course does not change in a more ascetic direction, however, our lack will rob our children of the abundance they need to care for themselves and us, shifting the burden of austerity inequitably onto their backs.<\/p>\n
The self-discipline we put off today is tomorrow\u2019s hardship. And the moral cost of our procrastination will be intergenerational injustice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Source: Acton Institute | Dylan Pahman In the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, a collection of wise stories and sayings from the first Christian monks, the following is attributed to one Abba Zeno: \u201cNever lay a foundation on which you might sometime build yourself a cell.\u201d This saying has at least two possible applications: 1) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13056"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13057,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13056\/revisions\/13057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}