Greed and Charity

Today is the final installment of my series on the Seven Deadly Sins, and a timely one at that seeing as it’s the Sin of Greed.

There are at least three forms of greed:
1) an obsessive desire for ever more material goods and the attendant power.
2) a fearful need to store up surplus goods for a vaguely defined time of want.
3) a desire for more earthly goods for their own sake.

Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.
Isaiah 56:11

Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.
Ecclesiastes 5:10

Greed (Latin, avaritia), also known as avarice or covetousness, is the desire for material gain. "Avarice" is more of a blanket term that can describe many other examples of greedy behavior. These include disloyalty, deliberate betrayal or treason (especially for personal gain), scavenging and hoarding of materials or objects, theft and robbery, or manipulation of authority.

Remind you of anything going on lately?

It is similar to Gluttony and Envy, but gain rather than consumption or possession is key. Thomas Aquinas condemned Greed because "it is a sin directly against one's neighbor, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them...it is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, inasmuch as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things."

Greed is self-serving. No one is ever greedy for something for someone else. Someone once asked a billionaire why he wanted more money when he was already rich, and he answered, "Because it’s there." No matter how much of anything a greedy person has, he has an insatiable appetite to want to more. Greed is covetousness, with covetousness being a foundation stone in all of the seven deadly sins.

Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be boiled alive in oil. Bear in mind that it's the finest, most luxurious boiling oil that money can buy, but it's still boiling.

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To avoid this fate, you must practice the Heavenly Virtue of Charity

Charity covereth a multitude of sins
Peter 4:8

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.
1 Corinthians 13:4

In Christian theology charity, or love (agapē), means an unlimited loving-kindness towards all others. The term should not be confused with the more restricted modern use of the word charity to mean benevolent giving.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it aptly:
Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbour as ourselves for the love of God.
(no. 1822).

If you’d like to check out the rest of the series, here are the links:  Pride, Wrath, Sloth  Lust,  Gluttony, and Envy.

Be sure to check back next week to see my next Throwback Thursday series.