God's generosity

In today’s Gospel, Luke 8: 16-18,  is that baffling statement: “To anyone who has, more will be given and from the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.”  That sounds so harsh. Why would those with little lose the little they have. “How fair is that?” we complain.  If we put Jesus’ words in the context of taking time to pray or reflect upon the Word of God or to do “sacred” reading—taking  5, 10, 15, 20 minutes a day to nurture our faith—the little faith we have will increase. If we do not spend any time in prayer during the day, the little faith we have will shrink.  The same holds true concerning other gifts. Let’s say that I say to myself, “I have nothing to give” and so I give nothing. I don’t go to the wake. I don’t go to the Bible study. I don’t pitch in at the soup kitchen. I don’t take time to listen to my children or I don’t take time to help my spouse or my children—“my helping won’t matter” or whatever excuse we use.  The little we have, then, shrinks. On the other hands, if we give the little we have, if we reach out to another in compassion, though we may not know what to do or say that would be helpful, our reaching out is rewarded.  We discover how rich it was to be present and show support to another person who is hurting or how appreciative one is to whom we  offered our assistance and with whom we pitched in to help.  We may have said little or done little, so it seems, but the person is eternally grateful that we dropped by to say hello, “how are you doing” or that we cleaned up the dishes or mowed the lawn or took out the garbage without being asked.   The little we had to give—our love, our compassion, our concern, our understanding-- increased to having even more to give

Jubilees: Celebrating the call to grow in charity,in serving others and in intimacy with the Lord

Yesterday, in the U.S./Caribbean Province of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, we celebrated our Sisters’ jubilees, that is, in lay terms, the anniversaries of the day they vowed to consecrate their lives to the Lord and live a life of poverty, chastity and obedience and, in the words of our vow formula:  “Through the grace of the Holy Spirit and with the help of Mary, Mother of Sorrows,…seek perfect charity, placing.. [themselves] in the service of God and of the Church…”   Three of our sisters celebrated 75 years of living religious life, yes, of seeking “perfect charity…in the service of God and of the Church.”  Imagine, those of you who have been called to seek perfect charity in marriage or in the single life and who have grown in love  and in loving over the years, deeply committed to one another and to serving others!  In religious life that means growing in the virtue of loving as Jesus loved and in developing a profound relationship with the Lord.  Some of our sisters succeed in that goal in ways that lead many of us to look upon their saintly lives in admiration of what God has accomplished in them, through them and with them.  I say to anyone whom God is calling to consecrate their lives to Him as women religious, what God has in store for you is astoundingly beautiful as you resolve to allow Christ to increase in your life, as John the Baptist did, as the Foundresses and Founders of religious life have done, including the Foundress of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, who is a candidate for beatification and sanctification.