88. St. Thomas More: The Business That Walks in Darkness

“Of the business that walketh about in the dark.” — Psalm 90:6

At the end of Book II of A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, St. Thomas More turns to the strange “business” named in Psalm 90. Anthony imagines a tempter who keeps men moving through a dark maze. Some chase bodily pleasure; others chase more wealth. When one round is finished, another begins. The soul may be tired and yet call its labor a success because it has forgotten to ask where the path leads.^1

More is not condemning the work of a father, the care of a mother, a craft, a field, a shop, or an honest office. He will go on to defend a household's need for provision and the good that property can do for others. His warning concerns an inordinate affection: the will that makes pleasure or possession its end. Work then becomes a way of serving an appetite that never says, “Enough.”

An exile may know that temptation in an unexpected form. One can fill the day with searching, comparing claims, reading disputes, and rehearsing every danger to the Faith. Some of that work may be necessary. But if the inquiry no longer leads to clearer obedience, prayer, repentance, charity, and true worship, it can become another circuit of the maze. The hands are busy; the soul postpones its answer to Christ.

More recalls Our Lord's parable of the rich man whose barns could not hold his harvest. The man decides to build greater barns and promises himself years of ease. God tells him that his soul will be required that very night. The man's error was not that he harvested grain. It was that he spoke as though the harvest were his final security and tomorrow belonged to him.^1^2

St. Paul warns that those who will become rich fall into a snare. More lingers on the will: possession is not the same thing as a heart set upon possessing. A Catholic can receive goods and use them lawfully; he cannot let them rule his judgment. The poverty of someone else does not by itself make every owner a thief, but neither can a comfortable owner call his abundance innocent while refusing the needy whom he can and ought to help.^1^3

This is an inward warning as much as an accusation against the world. It is possible to denounce heresy and still keep a private altar to money, reputation, or comfort. A man may refuse a false creed yet quietly obey his fear of losing business. A household may speak often of the true Church while giving its best hours and tenderness to possessions. The maze can run through a Catholic home.

More answers with Zacchaeus. This wealthy publican climbs a tree to see Our Lord, and Christ calls him down and enters his house. The people murmur at the visit. Zacchaeus responds by offering half his goods to the poor and fourfold restitution to anyone he has wronged. Jesus announces salvation to the house.^1^4

Notice how particular the conversion is. Zacchaeus does not merely feel sorry that money once possessed his heart. He names what love now requires: alms to the poor and restitution to the injured. More notes that he neither promised to give away everything nor was commanded to abandon his office. What had to end was extortion and the false confidence that goods could be kept without reference to God or neighbor.^1

This is a motherly lesson for a Catholic home. It is not enough to tell a child, “Be generous,” while concealing an unpaid debt or an injustice done to someone weaker. And it is not enough to tell the household, “We have duties to our own,” if that phrase always closes the door to a stranger in urgent need. Christ did not despise Zacchaeus for having a house. He entered it, and the house changed.

Vincent asks how anyone can keep goods while poor people lack necessities. Anthony refuses a rule made without regard to circumstances. A person must not keep everything for himself; neither is every Catholic commanded to give away every possession at once. More names the people already entrusted to one's care: children, those serving within the household, parents in need, and, at times, a guest whose sickness has made him dependent on the host. He also recognizes that a stranger's extreme need may take precedence over a relative's lesser one.^1

St. Paul states the duty of household care with severity: one who neglects his own has denied the Faith. That cannot be answered by calling neglect “detachment.” A father ought to provide, protect, teach a sound way of living, and consider how an inheritance may help or harm his children. A mother, too, bears real duties to those in her care. Yet neither parent owns the family as a private kingdom. Provision is ordered to life under God, not to a family's prestige or insulation from every sacrifice.^3

More's distinctions protect charity from two counterfeits. The first is hoarding disguised as prudence: I may someday need everything, so I can spare nothing. The second is generosity staged at the expense of duty: I will make a grand gift elsewhere while someone entrusted to me goes without what I owe him. The Christian must ask who is in need, what is owed, what can be given, and what God has actually placed within his charge.

There is honest business that can be offered to God. Bread is earned, a home kept, a debt paid, a child taught, a sick neighbor helped, a wrong repaired. These acts may be tiring, but they have an end beyond the appetite that demanded another turn through the maze. More's distinction is not between the active life and the life of prayer as enemies. The question is whether activity is governed by truth and charity or whether it has become a way of avoiding them.

This reaches religious work as well. Writing, studying, defending doctrine, and warning others can serve souls. They can also become a refuge from the uncomfortable duties nearest to us. Before another hour of argument, one may need to make peace with a family member, tell the truth about a debt, help someone find a true Mass, or pray. The site itself must submit to that examination. Its words are useful only insofar as they lead souls toward Christ and His Church rather than keeping them forever occupied at the threshold.

At day's end, More's rich fool leaves a question on the table: If my soul were required tonight, what would all this activity have been for? Do not answer with a mood. Look at the deeds. Did I do the work my state of life required? Did I withhold a kindness I could give? Did I keep what belonged to another? Did I spend so long identifying error that I failed to obey a truth I already knew?

Then look to Zacchaeus. Christ calls a man down from his vantage point and asks to enter his house. He does not demand that the man invent a dramatic poverty to impress the crowd. He asks for the conversion that reaches the purse, the injured neighbor, and the table. Where restitution is due, make it. Where alms can be given, give them. Where household duty calls, fulfill it. Where the mind has been circling the maze, bring it home to prayer and a concrete act of obedience.

The night is not made safe by a larger barn. It is made a time of hope by the Lord who enters the house and teaches its people to live as though His coming matters more than all they have stored.

Sources and notes

1. St. Thomas More, A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, Book II, chapter XVII. More interprets the “business” of Psalm 90, distinguishes possession from inordinate attachment, treats Zacchaeus, restitution, alms, and the order of duties within a household. Applications to contemporary religious research and this site are identified above as applications, not statements attributed to More.
2. Luke 12:16–21.
3. 1 Timothy 6:9; 5:8; Psalm 61:11.
4. Luke 19:1–10.