Lord, we want to invite you into our homes.

So we decorate them with giving to the needy, with prayers, with requests,

    and with vigils that focus increasingly on the needs of others.

There are the decorations of Christ the King.

 

We are not ashamed then of having a humble house,

    if it has this kind of furniture.

 

But the decorations that come from unstoppable greed

    are the enemy of Christ.

May those of us who are rich not pride ourselves 

    on having an expensive home.

Rather let us hide our faces, turn away from greed,

    and seek the other kind of decoration.

 

In so doing let us receive Christ in this life on earth,

    and there enjoy the eternal home,

by the grace and love you have for us in Jesus Christ,

    to whom be glory and might, world without end, amen.

 

John Chrysostom, c.349-407, Archbishop of Constantinople

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He said also to the man who had invited him, 

    “When you give a dinner or a banquet, 

        do not invite your friends or your brothers

         or your relatives or rich neighbors, 

    lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, 

    the crippled, the lame, the blind, 

    and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. 

For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”