Reginald Heber: small gestures of charity can exceed all expectations
Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta
OUR Gospel reading today is St John’s account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in today’s Gospel (John 6:1-14).
Bishop Reginald Heber (1783-1826) reassured us that just as Jesus’s blessing made the meagre provisions of five loaves and two fish far exceed anything we would expect, so too even the smallest gestures of charity – even those which do not involve money or material goods – can be life-changing.
A SINGLE warm and comfortable meal given to a poor neighbour, in a time of distress, may, by its consequences, be the means of saving a family. It may seem strange; but what if this man were, even then, almost worn out with want and toil, and if such timely nourishment have prevented his falling sick, and preserved him in a capacity to labour; — are not then his own and his family’s lives sustained by it? or what, if such a small relief came at a moment, when his heart was growing hard with distress; and when he was tempted to take to bad courses, for support; — may not a soul have been saved for ever, by our means?
Oh, it will be a glorious sight, hereafter, when the books of Providence are laid open before our eyes; — to see by what secret springs, what humble exertions, what meek and modest charities, the happiness of families, the support of nations, the great machine of the world itself, have been regulated and influenced: — to witness how God’s Providence may have given power and energy to the feeble alms of a widow; or to the silent prayers of those, who had prayers only to bestow; or how a cup of cold water given in the name of Christ, shall, in nowise, lose its reward!
Sermons On The Lessons, The Gospel Or Epistle, For Every Sunday. The Fourth Sunday In Lent.
It would be very satisfying, to win back charity from distant and wasteful governments, and from those who are more interested in the pain it brings to the rich than the relief it gives to the poor.
Heber shows just how very powerful charity is when it is given in kind, in person, and in constant attentive gestures – and above all, when it is given with Jesus’s blessing.
More by Reginald Heber here, and on Charity here. Heber also wrote some well-known hymns.
Tags: Reginald Heber
"[Politicians] are employed in framing laws and statutes for preventing crimes, and keeping the disorderly multitude within bounds; and at the same time, by personally discountenancing public worship, they are weakening, they are even abolishing, among the multitude, that moral restraint which is of more general influence upon manners than all the laws they frame."
I FIND, by experience, that by often seeing her Portrait, & that of her Dearest Son, I many times recall Him & His Merits, her & her Perfections, to my mind, which before was void of such Heavenly Guests.
I BELIEVE in one God the Father Almighty,