See what follows: "Blessed are the merciful for God will show them mercy." Do and it will be done; do it for another and it will be done for you. You both abound and need: you abound in temporal goods, you need eternal goods. You hear someone begging; you yourself are God's beggar. The beggar begs of you, and you beg of God. What you do with the one who begs of you, God will do with the one who begs of him. You are both full and empty. Fill the empty man from your abundance so that your emptiness may be filledfrom God's abundance. (Augustine, Sermon 53, 5; PL 38, 366)