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

The "Spirit speaking beforehand"

In today’s first reading, we are told that “…the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand….”  If in the time of the early Church, the “Spirit spoke beforehand, ” and God did, don’t you believe that God speaks beforehand in your life and mine as well? I believe that wholeheartedly, not that it is easy to accept God’s providence and designs for our lives, especially when we do not fully understand what God is doing or why God did what God did in the histories of our lives.  But, for instance, we know that when God met Adam and Eve in the garden after they failed to trust Him, He already had a solution for their disobedience, when He announced to Satan: “I will put enmity between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head while you will strike at his heel”  (Gen. 3:15).  Satan’s head was crushed by Jesus from the Tree of the Cross, the Tree of Life that replaced the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Paradise.  The plan of salvation is always active. As of old, we, too, move in and out of obedience to God, in and out of truly trusting God. God intervenes. He has a plan for our salvation in every event of our lives and the life to the Church today just as in the past when Peter and the first apostles followed Jesus’ call.