Are you unable to practise the virginal life? Then make a prudent marriage. Are you unable to do without possessions? Give, then, of what you possess. Is such a burden too heavy for you? Divide your goods with Christ. Are you not willing to cede Him everything? Make over to Him at least the half or the third part. He is your brother and co-heir; make Him your co-heir even on earth. How much soever you give to Him you give that to yourself. Do you not listen to the Prophet’s words, _Despise not thy own flesh_? But if we may not despise relations, how much less the Master, Who, besides His superiority, has the rights of relationship on His side, and many other stronger claims? He has made you a partaker of His own possessions, taking nothing from you, but being the first to give to you out of His unspeakable mercy. Then, is not it extreme folly neither to grow kind by this gift, nor to return a reward for a favour, and to give less instead of more? For He has made you heir to the kingdom of heaven, but you have not even given Him a share of the things of earth. You He reconciled without any merit of your own, when you were even His enemy; will you not make any return to your lover and benefactor, although, over and above the kingdom and all His other gifts, it was just that you should feel grateful to Him for the giving itself? Servants, indeed, when they call their masters to dinner, deem not that they are offering, but receiving; here, however, it was just the contrary. It was not the servant who first called the Lord, but the Lord Who first called the servant to His own table; and will you not call Him even after this? He was the first to bring you under His own roof; can you not even follow His example? He covered you in your nakedness, and in the face of this do you refuse to bring in a stranger? It was He Who first gave you to drink of His own cup, and will you not offer Him even cold water? He gave you the Holy Spirit to drink, and will you not relieve bodily thirst? He gave you the Spirit to drink, who were worthy of chastisement, but do you disregard a thirsty man whilst you are about to do all this out of what is His? Do you not consider it a great honour to hold the cup out of which Christ is about to drink, and to approach it to His mouth? Do you not see that the priest alone may give the chalice with the Blood? ‘I go into none of these particulars.’ Our Lord says: ‘If you yourself give it I receive it; even if you are a layman I do not refuse it. I do not require what I have given, for I seek not blood but cold water.’ Consider, then, _Whose_ thirst you are relieving, and be in awe. Consider that _you_ have become Christ’s priest, giving with your own hands not flesh but bread, not blood but a drink of cold water. He has put on you the robe of salvation, and has clothed you through Himself; do you also clothe _Him_ in the person of a child. He has made you a name in heaven; do you drive away cold, and nakedness, and unseemliness.