Giving

It seems we never can find rest from giving. The daily mail, with half of it (or all of it, frequently) coming from marketing firms representing the poor, religious orders, veterans, or political parties, pushes us to the point of just tearing up and tossing. Local organizations which depend on gifts are being strained beyond what seems humanly possible to sustain and approach us for help. Lazarus House, which now supplies 800 meals daily and 12 tons of food a month, put out a major SOS for donations last Saturday. People seemed to be responding, of course, because it is part of our nature to want to share and give what we can to help those who have less.
That deeply human quality is what prompted St. Marcellin to want to share the treasure or treasures, our faith, with those who have less. His original idea was to take in orphans, especially, and educate them in the faith as well as to give them love, food and shelter. What a generous, giving heart pumped the blood through that man's veins! When we think we've given as much as we can, we might picture him pushing to visit our schools in those mountainous hamlets, even when he was physically exhausted, and later in his life, when he was ill with what today would have been diagnosed as stomach cancer. As his final days approached, he saw to it that his spiritual testament was prepared and then read to the brothers in his presence, weak though it was. Giving to his last breath.
Jesus tells us: "Of love, of thought, of all you have, give, give, give. You are followers of the World's Greatest Giver. Give of time, of personal ease and comfort, of rest, of fame, of healing, of power, of sympathy, of all these and many more. Learn this lesson, and you will become a great power to help others and to do mighty things." ---God Calling, August 30.