I heard a story about an
old Dominican who died recently. Maurice Fearan was his name. He was giving a
retreat in Kashmir (India) in a place called Shrinagar beside the Dall lake. It
is 7000 feet above sea level and a big tourist attraction; very beautiful
apparently. It turned out that so many people came to the retreat that they had
to give him accommodation where the retreat was being held, so they put him on
one of the tourist boats. So each evening after the retreat he would go back to
the tourist boat, have a light meal and sleep.
One evening when he was
eating, a young lady from Argentina joined him. While they were chatting a
storm started to blow up on the lake and it began to come towards them. Eventually there were flashes of lightening
near them and they were both getting nervous, especially since they were on
water. Then the young lady leaned towards him and said, ‘Father, I’d like to go
to confession, but before I go to confession I want to tell you something.’ And then she said, ‘Father I don’t believe in
hell.’ Maurice said, ‘Why don’t you
believe in hell?’ She said, ‘I am an
only child and my father loves me completely and I know that no matter what I
do, my father would never reject me. Sometimes
he may do things which embarrass me, but I could never do anything which would
embarrass him. No matter what I do he
would never reject me and so I don’t believe God would ever reject me
either.’ Isn’t that powerful? And I think that is the approach we should
take too.
I think we often pray ‘too
small’ as you might say. We are afraid that we can’t have the very best, or
that God might frown on us if we expect too much and yet Jesus taught the very
opposite. ‘How many of you would give your child a snake if he asked for a
fish; or a stone if he asked for bread?’ And then he said, ‘If you who are evil
know how to give good things to your children, how much more will the heavenly
Father look after you?’ It is a wonderful teaching and probably one that we could
do with reflecting on more. The Father wants to give us everything. He wants the very best for us always.
In the first reading God
is teaching us never to be afraid, because if we trust in his word He will
never let us down. The woman had almost
nothing left and the prophet Elijah asked her to share it. She was afraid, but Elijah said, ‘Trust in
the word of God and you will be alright.’
So she did trust him and she was alright. God invites us to do the
same. So often we are afraid that we
won’t be able to manage and yet the Lord keeps telling us, ‘Trust in me and I will
look after your every need’ and He does.
One thing that the Lord
has taught me as a priest is never to be afraid to give away money to people
who need it. I don’t just mean people who come to the door asking for money,
but people I come across who I know are in trouble. They are the ones who
rarely ask, but the Lord often lets me see their need. People often give me
money because I am a priest and I believe it is part of my work to pass it on
whenever the Lord shows me such need.
But I have always found that every time I have given away money,
sometimes reluctantly as I feel maybe it’s too much or that I might be stuck,
within 24 hours I will be given the money back by someone else and usually more.
This has happened to me so many times that I always believe it is God’s way of
teaching me to trust him. He looks after all our needs and He will never be
outdone in generosity.
In the Gospel today Jesus
sees the poor woman putting in what seemed to be a very small amount, but He knew
it was everything she had. God sees what we do and He constantly encourages us
to be generous, especially with those who are in need. Remember God will never
be outdone in generosity. If we are generous, God will be far more generous. We forget that Our Father in heaven is the Lord of all the
universe. God has lots of money. Any father will give his children whatever
they need and with as much generosity as he can. Our Father in heaven is never outdone in
generosity, so let us never be afraid to be generous.
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