NO LIMIT TO OUR GENEROSITY!
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Lk 6: 38)
As I write, we are into the 5th Week of the Easter season. The 1st Reading for this Sunday’s Mass (Acts 6:1-7) brings home the truth that the Church has a two part mission: proclaim the Word of God and feed the poor. For the latter part, Stephen and six others were elected to carry out this duty. We might say they were ‘ordained’ since the Apostles ‘prayed and laid hands on them’.
I am writing this article a few months before you will read it. As a result of the American attack on Iran, petrol costs have risen beyond our imagination and even in New Zealand it is the poorer sections of our society who are suffering. The consequence of all this is rising costs in almost every section of our daily needs. So headlines in various papers talk about ‘cut backs’, even relating to food banks and organisations who donate food. How are we to look at this?
We can easily agree to accept the reality. Too bad! That’s the way it is. But is it? Is this not the time to challenge, particularly our Sunday congregations, to be even more generous? When I first entered a seminary, the priests often quoted St Alphonsus Ligouri: if the poor are starving, even the sacred vessels used at Mass must be melted down and sold. Wow!
When therefore we hear our leaders proclaiming as Pope Leo has done recently: “The poor are not a distraction for the Church, they are our beloved brothers and sisters ... they put us in contact with the truth of the Gospel” we must ask, ‘what is the truth of the Gospel?’
One aspect of the answer must surely be that in difficult times we simply trust and be more generous and challenge others, particularly our church goers to be the same. I say this, because Jesus teaches that God is never outdone in generosity. Now is not a time to be afraid, particularly when giving to the poor. As the author C.S. Lewis writes: “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”
My fear is that when I am comfortable, while I may believe in caring for the poor, I put limits on my sacrifice, then, when I look carefully at gospel truth, I don’t like what I see, the challenge appears too great. The truth of the gospel is: Christ gave away everything. We may not like that, but the least we can accept is this: tough times are not the time for cut backs in our caring. A recent conversation with a prison chaplain, brought to light that many female prisoners are there because of stealing food. They had no other way of providing food for their children. Their need was now. If that is true what does it say about us?
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DISCUSSION: What are your thoughts on the above and the relevance of the scripture quote, Luke 6:38?
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PRAYER
Come Holy Spirit
Giver of
Wisdom
Understanding
Courage
These I need right now.
Keep me unsettled
Until the truth of the gospel
Has formed a path
Into my comfortable living.
