July 28 -- Bl John Soreth, O.Carm.

Another Carmelite-calendar-only feast today: Blessed John Soreth, sometime Prior General of the undivided Carmelite Order, is celebrated today.

This is what we had to say about him a few years ago. In particular, this bears reprinting:

“In sermons dealing with sin, Soreth reproves first of all the sins of the merchants. Sermons 25 through 31 as well as 33 and 34, deal specifically with economic questions, especially with usury. The first of these uses trade mainly as a metaphor, but no. 26 attacks the question straight on. Since goods need to be carried from place to place, Soreth says, there must be merchants, but the life of a merchant is spiritually dangerous: Dame Avarice waits for him. Merchants should only work to support their wives and children, and to give to the poor, not in order to gain ‘grans estas.’ He enumerates the sins of merchants: breaking the Sabbath and feasts, charging more than a just price, speculating on the resale of goods, swearing false oaths, using false weights and measures, selling fraudulently in dark places, cheating in negotiation, selling tainted food and drugs, speculation in exchange rates, and taking long trips without their wives, so that the marriage debt is not paid.”

Quotation taken from this lecture on Bl John's sermons here.