(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things.
Read Chapter 6
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
It is not without reason that men are in such great fear and distress, when they are so blind as to imagine that their happiness in this life is ruled by fate. But such as know that they are entirely governed by the will of God, know also that a store is laid up for them in his hands. (St. Chrysostom)
He does not however stop at the rebuke, but having by this reproved and roused them, and shamed them with all strength of expression, by another argument He also comforts them, saying, For your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. He said not, God knows, but, your Father knows; to lead them to a greater hope. For if He be a Father, and such a Father, He will not surely be able to overlook His children in extremity of evils; seeing that not even men, being fathers, bear to do so.
And He adds along with this yet another argument. Of what kind then is it? That you have need of them. What He says is like this. What! Are these things superfluous, that He should disregard them? Yet not even in superfluities did He show Himself wanting in regard, in the instance of the grass: but now are these things even necessary. So that what you consider a cause for your being anxious, this I say is sufficient to draw you from such anxiety. I mean, if you say, Therefore I must ...
He does not forbid us to eat, but to say, "What shall we eat?" The rich say in the evening, "What shall we eat tomorrow?" See that it is luxury and excess that He forbids.
The kingdom of God is the enjoyment of all that is good. This comes through righteousness. To him who seeks after spiritual things God in His generosity adds what is needed for physical life.
