Wednesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Lately I’ve been pondering what it means to be generous. How do I define generosity? How do I know if I’m being generous toward God and others? What measures or metrics can I apply to determine whether or not I’m being generous? I haven’t answered those questions for myself yet, but I have concluded that authentic generosity flows from gratitude. Put another way, gratitude becomes the fertile field from which the fruit of generosity springs. Today’s readings invite further reflection on this proposal.
In our first reading, St Paul declares, “Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” In the Gospel, Jesus describes three spiritual disciplines: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. In each case, he tells us to avoid making an outward show or drawing attention to ourselves when we engage in these activities. Our outward behavior is always predicated on an inner state or condition and an interior motive. If folks seek attention from others when giving to God, some kind of inner need fuels that behavior. Perhaps it’s a need to feel affirmed or validated, to measure up to some standard, to be recognized, to have a sense of being obedient. Sometimes we do feel compelled, rather than cheerful, to be charitable, to perform service, or to practice spiritual disciplines. Today is a good day to examine our own motives.
When gratitude to God becomes our interior driver, the root of our motivation, then cheerful obedience to Christ and fruitful discipleship flows naturally. Pause and reflect for a moment on gratitude; pause reading and let your spirit, mind, and heart become consciously grateful to God. Do you feel or sense gratitude welling up within you? Can you recognize that out of that place, generosity might begin to flow? I haven’t yet fully defined generosity for myself, but I do know that it flows most authentically from the well of gratitude within me; deep gratitude to God for God’s love, mercy, forgiveness, grace, presence, blessings. When I’m truly grateful for what I receive from God, then I can’t help but become a channel of blessing to others, and I can’t help but devote more time in prayer and other spiritual disciplines, seeking nothing other than abiding in God’s presence. A grateful heart is more finely tuned and responsive to God, our generous Giver.
If anything other than gratitude motivates me in my charity and spiritual disciplines, true generosity will be impossible. There is a purity to generosity that mustn't be tainted by selfish motives. If there’s something in it for me, either inwardly or outwardly, then I’m not freely and generously giving to God. When I lose touch with gratitude, selfishness can creep in, too, and then I withhold things from God; I’m reluctant to give fully of my time, treasure, testimony, talents. Gratitude is an antidote to fear, lack of trust, anything that keeps me holding on too tightly to what I have.
As always, it is God who provides all we need in every situation. God even provides what we need to practice authentic generosity! As Paul maintains, “God is able to make every grace abundant for you . . . You may have an abundance for every good work . . . You are being enriched in every way for all generosity.” God supplies and multiples the seed we sow and the harvest we reap in the fertile field of grateful generosity. Even gratitude and generosity are not of us - they are gifts of God by God’s grace!
Today, let us pray for the graces we need to cultivate grateful generosity and may we indeed increase the harvest of righteousness. Thanks be to God!
—Elizabeth Wourms