40 Things I'm Thankful For

Day 23

Almsgiving

I'm thankful for my friend Sean York and his reflection on Lent for our newsletter (below).  I'm thankful for the reminders God gives us during Lent about how loving each other isn't just giving clothes to the needy, but it's even more about helping others come to know Christ, especially those God has put closest to us in our daily lives.  

Be loving, be joyful, be kind, and don't be afraid to be bold, be strong, be courageous.  BE CHRISTIAN.   It is our privilege to help our friends and family come closer to Christ.      

"St Paul tells us in first Corinthians, “to the weak I became weak as to win over the weak. I became all things to all to save at least some.” 1 Cor. 9:22. Every year Lent is typically the same for me, it consists of giving up some material thing that I love so I can sacrifice for the Kingdom, then about half way through the resolutions I have made end up forgotten and I am typically not transformed by Christ during Lent any more than other seasons. However, this year is different. Radically different, because I am learning what St Paul meant when he said “to the weak I became weak.” This year I am learning what it means to grow in communion with Christ and with my neighbor. I am coming to love Christ in a much deeper way than I knew before. In this Lenten reflection, I don’t want to talk about fasting, or prayer, but instead the one that I always forgot, almsgiving. Almsgiving, as in giving of yourself, giving of yourself totally and completely to another in order to help them get to heaven. This is what Lent truly is about.

If we are truly one Body in Christ, then our whole essence, our whole goal, should be first to love God and then to love our neighbor as ourselves. However, as I look around the world, typically people are not giving up everything, or really anything, for their brother or sister in Christ who is drowning right beside them. In our world there is a spirit of indifference towards our brother. A spirit of isolation prevails. Relativism has corrupted not only the way we think, but the way we interact and effect one another. But the great commandment of love demands more from us. It demands that when we look at our neighbor we have a responsibility for that person, physically and spiritually. It is our privilege to care for our neighbor’s every need. It is not just our own lives that matter, because the people around us are our brothers and sisters in humanity. When we reach the pearly gates God will not only hold us accountable for our own lives, but the impact we’ve had on others.

I never truly understood what St Paul meant when he said “I became all things to all, to save at least some,” until I got to Belize. In essence this is what Lent is about. Almsgiving is to give myself completely to my neighbor and to do whatever it takes to help them. To the intellectual I became intellectual, to the football lover I became a football lover, to the poor I became poor, to the “weak I became weak.” Whatever a person needs I am trying to become so that I can help them turn towards Christ. You see, Christ is the stem of it all. First look to Him, then look to your neighbor, then look back towards Him. To help change others lives one has to become like them. You must meet them wherever they are. In order to meet them you must die to yourself by giving up your wants and desires in order to carry the person next to you back to Christ. John Dunn said, “No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a part of the continent, a piece of the main.” The Pope tells us in this Lenten season we need a renewal of brotherhood. It is our responsibility to look past our own lives towards Christ and “to be concerned for one another, and not to remain isolated and indifferent to the fate of our brothers and sisters.”

Let us never forget how beautiful the people are around us, and when we see them let us see a reflection of ourselves. This lent let us give ourselves completely to one another and let us not remain as the priest and the levite did in the parable of the good Samaritan when they passed by indifferent to the man stripped and beaten by the robbers (Luke 10; 30-32). Let us stop living for ourselves and reach out to the least of our brothers."