Trusting in God Leads to Generous Hearts
My dad loved to teach and was always trying creative ways to motivate his students to learn. He felt a bit sad when he had to give up teaching to become a principal in order to earn more money for our family.
One day, he was called to substitute as a catechist for one of our CCD classes in the parish. The first reading about Elijah and the widow of Zarephath reminds me of the lesson he taught about the importance of thinking of others and not just our own needs.
My father bought cookies for the class but deliberately had only half as many cookies as there were students. He passed them out and then apologized for not having enough for everyone. He was testing the students to see if they would break their cookies in half to share with the remaining students who didn’t get one. He noted that no one shared but quickly gobbled up their cookies, even though they saw that half the students didn’t receive one. He then taught a lesson about looking around and seeing other people rather than just being selfish and thinking of our own needs.
I jokingly asked my dad if he were in the same situation whether he would have shared his cookie with someone else. I didn’t get a response. Later on, his mother (Grandma Esther) made a funny comment to me about how my dad was honest as the day was long. She said she could put a $10 bill on a counter and he wouldn’t touch it. However, a slice of pie on the counter was a whole different story.
Every day, there are people in the world guided by the Holy Spirit who believe in the goodness and generosity of God and aren’t afraid to “share their bread with the hungry” (cf. Isaiah 58:10) because they know that God will take care of them.
In a world that so often fosters selfishness, the Lord invites us to be mindful of how blessed we are and to look around and see who is on the margins and whose needs are not being met. Let us all pray for greater sensitivity to the poor and needy around us and trust that God will give us all that we need to advance the Kingdom of God.
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