In this Season of Light, one becomes aware of the need to give.
We see all the signs. There are more disheveled souls standing on corners and medians of local highways; holding small signs, looking for something or perhaps, a little understanding.
Awareness of one’s plight brings about a hint of understanding or why we are called to give to begin with; to have a touch of charity in our own hearts.
The following excerpt is taken from “Story of a Soul” the autobiography of St. Therese, the Little Flower.
“I am going to finish explaining what Jesus makes me understand concerning charity. I have spoken to you only about external charity; now I would like to confide to you what I understand about purely spiritual charity.”
Jesus said, “From him who would borrow of you do not turn away.” “Thus under the pretext that one would be forced to refuse, one must not stay away from those who are always in the habit of asking for help.”
Jesus continues, “If you lend to those from who you hope to receive in return, what merit have you? But do good, lend; not hoping for anything in return and your reward will be great.”
“Oh yes, the reward will be great, even on this earth; in this way it is only the first step that costs anything.”
Perhaps the best way to sum up the message for week 2 of Advent can be found in the Dickens classic, “A Christmas Carol.” Scrooge’s nephew is making his case regarding his own understanding of Christmas: “I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round – apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin if anything belonging to it can be apart from that – as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”