Jordan of Saxony – Hold Fast to Charity

Jordan of Saxony – Hold Fast to Charity February 13, 2021

 

Have you ever wondered if you should give money to men and women who ask it of you on the streets? It’s a question I am asked by people all the time because of my work with poor and hungry people. A story about Jordan of Saxony, who is commemorated today, offers valuable insight. Bl. Jordan encountered a poor man on the road and gave him his tunic. Work got back that this man had sold the tunic so that he could get drunk. One of the brothers chastened him for being foolish with his generosity, but Jordan replied he had given his tunic “because I believed him to be in want, through sickness and poverty and it seemed, at the moment, to be a charity to help him. Still, I reckon it better, to have parted with my tunic than with charity.’

Bl. Jordan would take over the Dominican order after the death of St. Dominic. May we live lives of charity as well.


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