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Tag: Charity
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Your Venomous Words Betray You
TRANSCRIPT:
I was reading the Magnificat today, and the words hit me in a little bit of a different way than they have in the past. And I was thinking about the pride and the conceit and of the world, and I was thinking about the rich and what the Saints tell us that the purpose of the rich is. And the rich, of course, are here on earth for the aid of the poor- to come to their aid. And the poor are here on the earth for the spiritual salvation of the rich, to give the rich people an opportunity to work out their salvation through their generosity and their benefits and their assistance.
And each of us has been born into a particular place in our life, and most of us probably, that are watching this, are rich by any standard, certainly compared to what the Saints of all time have lived like. And a large portion of the world’s population today are dependent upon those of us that are rich. And Saint Thomas talks about how if we have an extra coat in our closet, we should give that to the poor. If it’s hanging in our closet and we’re not using it, that’s excess that we own that we should give to the poor. Or if we have an excess of food, that should be going to the poor. And I just thought about how my own closet is full of clothes that I don’t wear on a regular basis and haven’t worn in a long time, and that there’s not a single meal that goes by that I don’t at least have access to seconds, you know, a second portion, a helping.
And yet, how rare it is that that would go to the poor, or that the money that provided for that excess could have gone to the poor instead of going into seconds for my family or an extra coat or a second hat or a third pair of gloves or whatever. It’s a high standard, but it’s the standard that Saint Thomas tells us this is the one that we must adhere to for salvation. So, I’m just going to be working on looking for opportunities in my life to take the excess, the things that I don’t really need according to my state in life, and find a way to get those to the poor.
Categories
What Kind of Friend Was Our Lord?
TRANSCRIPT:
I’ve been thinking recently and meditating about the life of Our Lord and what He was like every moment, all of those hidden moments in His life. He was a son, He was a cousin, He was a worker- perhaps a stonemason or a contractor. And how he lived every moment as a young man in all of His roles, how He fulfilled His duties in life. And reflecting on that, trying to know Him better, to understand Him, to become more like Him.
I thought about what He would have been like as a friend, and He would have been the perfect friend, the most charitable, kind friend you could ever imagine. And that would have manifested itself in great ways, of course, but also in the simplest of ways. And I ask my guardian angel to help me to identify opportunities to do little acts of charity for the people in my life, principally my spouse and my children; not great big heroic acts of charity that would be noticed, but tiny, simple, little ways that I could grow in charity by doing an act of charity every day. And it was very profound. What I discovered was that throughout the day there were these tiny, little things that I could do that would be unnoticed, probably, but were acts of service for me.
For example, I have a narrow driveway, at one point, and my wife doesn’t like to back up her car up the driveway between the house and the fence. And so one morning, I realized she was preparing to leave, and I went out and got the car for her and backed it up. Now this is, you know, an almost embarrassingly small act of charity, but doing this kind of thing every day- putting something away for a person, picking up an item that you know they’re going to misplace or they’re going to go looking for, or some other small act of charity- helps to form our will and form our body and mind to be more like Christ. I hope this is helpful to you. God bless you.
TRANSCRIPT:
Good morning gentlemen. My insight for this week has proved to be very troublesome for me and this is because I was reading the words of our Lord about how we must forgive one another basically in the way in which we hope to be forgiven. And of course, we’re supposed to love one another in the way that our Lord loves us.
And I realize that this means we must sacrifice for others, we must do penance for others, we must suffer and perhaps even die for other people, and not just the people that we love, not just the people who we get along with, that we enjoy, not just our family and friends, but even the people who hate us. We’re called to literally imitate Christ in this way. And the degree to which we love others is basically the degree to which we’re hoping that God would love us. And if we fail at that, what is the message that we’re sending to Christ?
So, this is my insight for the week, something that I’m going to be thinking about and applying to my own life, and I hope it’s helpful to you.