How much is enough?
We love people.
Occasionally
we give them some money ... or clothes that we no longer want and
would not be caught dead in, gifts (the least expensive possible,
or better yet, those that had been given us that we consider useless
or worthless and save for the occasion when a gift will be required
of us ... or which we were ready to throw out anyway).
We
give them much advice — in this regard we are unstinting and most
generous.
We
are less generous with our time; we express appropriate sadness
and compassion but we invest nothing of ourselves in it; we are
quick to empathize but quicker still to forget ... and we assiduously
avoid the deeply needy.
We
write out checks, tear them off and post them to some poor child
in an impoverished country — and never remember their name ... only
the deep, almost sensual sense of satisfaction that we are so good,
so generous, so loving of ... “what’s her name ...?”
We
give far, far less of ourselves, for that is the most valuable commodity
of all ...
Even
... even if we give extravagantly of our money, generously
in our time, amply of ourselves — our Holy Father reminds us of the
greatest gift of all (and it is not ourselves ... sorry):
The gift of God. We hear an echo
of this in St. Paul:
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“And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the
poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned,
and have not love, it profits me nothing.”
(I Cor. 13.3)
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We keep our money
from the poor at the peril of our souls (and we all
have excuses ...), we give our refuse to Christ when we toss
our useless clothing to the poor; we give “wise” counsel to
the needy, but no bread. In a rare paroxysm of magnanimity we
even give ourselves!
But do we give
God? Do we give Him Who is most necessary to us,
Who loves us above the loves of all others? We are made in His
image. We can. We can be the face, the hand,
the voice, of Jesus Christ to our brother, our sister, needy
or not – all cry out for Him in the dark watches of the nights
that leach into our lives from every shadow ... sickness, loneliness,
grief, death ...
Your money, your
clothing, your checks, will never bring them solace ... they
will only find it in the face of God ... and you alone can bring
it.
Imagine ... you
can!
The two words —
Jesus Christ — are the
most beautiful in the world! And you are ashamed to
utter them ... to give God to the world...? Jesus spoke of those
who are ashamed of Him in this world ... or perhaps you have
forgotten?
“For
whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words, of him will the
Son of Man be ashamed
when He comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and
of the holy angels.”
(St.
Luke 9.26)
"Whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before
My Father in Heaven.”
(St. Matthew 10.33)
Quite a sobering thought — no? In fact,
it should literally
“scare
the Hell out of you!”
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
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