SHARING GENEROSITY
Monday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
Generosity can be a relative thing. For a millionaire to donate the two copper coins Jesus saw being put into the temple treasury, the action would be an insult to charity. For the poor widow to donate those coins, it was an heroic act of faith and love. It is not difficult for anyone to realize that. I think we all know when we are being generous or stingy when it comes to giving of our money or sharing our material possessions.
But we all have other things to give and share with others. Time is one of our most very precious possessions. We all have 24 hours of time every day. Some of it is used up working for pay, some for necessary eating and sleeping. The rest can be used in many different ways – for ourselves and for others.
We can use some of it for thinking, for reading, for learning. We can use it for fulfilling obligations that our positions in life require - as a parent, as a child - particularly as a child of God. We can share our time with our families and friends, use it to listen to someone’s story, spend some of it visiting the sick, helping the helpless, maybe playing with the children, or even walking the dog. And let us not forget time spent in prayer. How generous are we with our time? That’s an important question for us to ask of ourselves - from time to time.
Then there are our talents and abilities, our knowledge and education, our strength and our wisdom. Do we use them, how do we use them, and for whom? God is always generous with us. Let us continue to learn how to share his generosity with others.
