Greed harms you: Generosity helps you

“We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.” Dorothy Day.” - (American journalist, social activist, and devout Catholic convert)

Gospel Text: (LK 14:12-14)
On a sabbath Jesus went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees.
He said to the host who invited him,
“When you hold a lunch or a dinner,
do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters
or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors,
in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.
Rather, when you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Today, the Lord teaches us the true meaning of Christian generosity: to learn how to devote ourselves to others.

The Lord invites all of us to give ourselves unconditionally to all men, motivated only by our love to God and to our brothers in the Lord. «If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit [is] that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount.» (Lk 6:34).

Things are like that because the Lord helps us to understand that, if we give ourselves unselfishly, without expecting anything in return, God will repay us with a greater reward and will confirm us as his children. This is why Jesus tells us: «But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.» (Lk 6:35).

We know a family who for years on Thanksgiving morning had a special breakfast. They didn't invite their close friends, rather, they invited the people at church they had met who didn't have family in the area or who didn't have family at all. What a glorious mix of humanity they found at their table each year and how blessed they all were sharing that morning of food and fellowship together.

What a simple way to do as the scriptures tell us today and glorify God by cultivating generous, humble hearts open to the least of our brethren.