Never be boastful about the offerings to church or charity.

Gems from the desert fathers- ‘Never be boastful about the offerings to church or charity.’

St. Melania the Elder, in a visit she made to the holy solitaries who inhabited the deserts of Egypt, came to Abba Pambo's monastery on mount Nitria. She found the holy abbot sitting at his work, making mats. She gave him three hundred pounds weight of silver, desiring him to accept that part of her store for the necessities of the poor among the brethren.

Abba Pambo, without interrupting his work, or looking at her or her present, said to her that God would reward her charity. Then turning to his disciple, he bade him take the silver, and distribute it among all the brethren in Lybia and the isles who were most needy, but charged him to give nothing to those of Egypt, that country being rich and plentiful.

Melania continued some time standing, and at length said: "Father, do you know that here is three hundred pounds weight of silver?"

The abbot, without casting his eye upon the chest of silver, replied: "Daughter, He to whom you made this offering, very well knows how much it weighs without being told. If you give it to God who did not despise the widow's two mites, and even preferred them to the great presents of the rich, say no more about it."  

(Ref: The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Rev. Alban Butler, Volume VII, Published by D. & J. Sadlier, New York).

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“And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury,  and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites.  So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.” (St Luke 21:1-4, NKJV)