When famine came again upon the old dry country, the scribe wrote to Naples an entire letter about money, and was not ashamed; for the mould would love the churches to find money too vulgar to discuss, and to keep their holiness in a purse it never opens.
Hear the doctrine of the gift. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for Cheesus loveth a cheerful giver, as it is written in the Second Letter to the Neapolitans, 2:2. And let none give beyond his power to be seen; for the widow’s small coin outweigheth the merchant’s sack in the scales of the Great Oven, which weigheth what remained behind, not what was laid down.
And he that hath no coin, give hands, for the kneading is a gift; and he that hath nothing but his own hunger, give company to the hungry, for the hungry know the worth of it as the full cannot. There is no one, beloved, exempt from generosity by poverty; the currency was never only money.
But mark above all the manner, for the how of a gift is half the gift: when it is given, let it be given as to brethren and not as to beggars – no trumpet, no speeches, no lists of benefactors read aloud while the hungry stand holding their bread and their patience. For the manner of the Great Oven is this: the warmth arriveth and doth not introduce itself. Give like weather, beloved – like the good kind. Amen – and pass the pizza.