Choose a topic from Part 2B:
1. The Old Law imposed the duty of paying tithes (that is,one-tenth of all revenues) for the support of religion. Certainly,the obligation of offering to the Church a decent proportion ofone's income is incumbent on man, even in the light of naturalreason. The paying of one's share here is an act ofreligion.
2. All one's material possessions come from God.Hence, some part of such things should be offered to God again,both to show that we ourselves do not create them, and to supportand propagate the true religion. Such an offering is an externalact of religion.
3. Since those who serve the altar, the clergy, have mostserious duties to occupy all their time and energies, they must notbe forced to acquire temporal necessaries for themselves. They areto be supported by offerings, by the fair contributions of all thepeople.
4. The clergy themselves are not required to pay tithes orto make offerings out of tithes received. But if a clergyman hasproperty and income of his own, as by inheritance for example,he is required to make suitable and proportionate offering out ofthis income for the support of religion.
"Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation in the things of God, or to suffer and keep their ground in drynesses of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it."
St Philip Neri
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"Whom do you seek, friend, if you seek not God? Seek him, find him, cleave to him; bind your will to his with bands of steel and you will live always at peace in this life and in the next."
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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"Shun too great a desire for knowledge, for in it there is much fretting and delusion. Intellectuals like to appear learned and to be called wise. Yet there are many things the knowledge of which does little or no good to the soul, and he who concerns himself about other things than those which lead to salvation is very unwise.
"
Thomas á Kempis
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