LEARNING TO GIVE
Sometimes it’s not so easy to answer the simplest questions. We’ve frequently heard it said that to love is to give. But what is giving? Many suppose that giving is just to deprive oneself of something, renounce something, «sacrifice» by letting go of something. We’re so conditioned by our society of well-being and so inclined to possess, accumulate and gain, that «to give» seems something unproductive to us. An impoverishment that we aren’t ready to accept. In our society, whoever gives without receiving is a person who’s hardly practical, with no realistic sense, hardly intelligent.
Yet to give is something completely distinct. The gesture of giving is the richest expression of vitality, wealth, and creative power. When we give something truly, we experience our very selves as full of life, overflowing, capable of enriching others, though it be at a very modest level. «Only love makes life worth living. Only helping another procures the great joy of living» (Karl Tillmann).
Giving means being alive and being rich. The one who has much and doesn’t know how to give, isn’t rich. He’s a small man, impotent, impoverished, for all that he may possess. In reality, one is only rich who is capable of giving something of himself away to another.
We all need to listen more attentively and deeply to Jesus words. It will not go without reward, not even a glass of cool water that we know how to give to a poor thirsty person. We need to learn to give away what is alive in us and could do good for another; to give our joy, understanding, encouragement, hope, welcome or closeness.
Many times it’s not about grand or spectacular things. Simply «a glass of cool water»: a welcoming smile, listen without hurry, help to raise a fallen spirit, a gesture of solidarity, a visit, a sign of support and friendship. We mustn’t forget it. In the depth of our life there’s someone who blesses, welcomes and rewards every gesture of love, as small as it may seem to be to us. That one is called God, our Father.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
