Word of Life

by Chiara Lubich

October 2008

 

Give, and it will be given to you.
A good measure, pressed down,
shaken together, running over,
will be put into your lap. (Lk. 6: 38)

 

 

Has it ever happened that you received a gift from a friend and then felt you had to give something in return? Not so much because you felt obliged to reciprocate, but as a sign of love and gratitude? I’m sure it has.

If this is how it is for you, imagine how it must be for God, who is love. He always reciprocates for every gift we give to our neighbour in his name. True Christians experience this frequently. And each time it is a surprise. We never get used to the inventiveness of God.

I could give you thousands of examples! I could even write a book about it! And you would see how true that image is: ‘a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.’ It illustrates the abundance and the generosity with which God always reciprocates.

Here is one example. Night had fallen in Rome. In their basement flat, a small group of young women who wanted to live the Gospel were wishing each other good night, when suddenly the doorbell rang. Who could it be at this hour? On the doorstep they found a man in a state of great agitation. He was desperate: the following day he and his family were going to be evicted because they had been unable to pay the rent.

The women looked at one another and then, in silent accord, went to the drawer where, in separate envelopes, they kept what was left of their salaries together with money saved for their bills: gas, electricity, telephone. Without a moment’s hesitation, they gave their visitor everything.

That night they went to bed happy. Someone else would take care of them.

Then just before dawn the phone rang. It was the same man. ‘I’ve called a taxi, and I’m coming right over!’ They waited for him, amazed that he should have chosen to come by taxi. But as soon as they saw his face they knew something had changed. ‘Last night, when I got home,’ he said, ‘I received an inheritance I never dreamed I would get. My heart told me I should give half of it to you.’ The amount he gave them was exactly twice what they had generously given him.

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.

Have you had this sort of experience? If not, remember that the gift must be given with no self-interest, without hoping to get it back, and to anyone who asks.

Try it: not so you can see if it works, but because you love God.

You might say, ‘I haven’t got anything.’
That’s not true. If we want, we possess inexhaustible treasures: our time, our heart, our smile, our advice, our culture, our peace, our words that could persuade someone to give to another who is in need.

You might also say, ‘I don’t know who to give to.’

Just look around you: remember that sick person in hospital, that widow always alone, that school friend who failed a test and is so downhearted, that depressed young man who can’t find work, your little brother who needs a hand, that friend in prison, that new employee who is a bit insecure. In each person, Christ is waiting for you.

Take up the new, Christian way of behaving, of which the whole Gospel is full. It’s the exact opposite of being closed in ourselves and anxious. Give up placing your security in this world’s goods and start relying on God. This will show your faith in him, and it will be quickly confirmed by the gifts you receive.

Of course, God does not act like this to make you richer or to make us richer. He does it so that others, many others, seeing the little miracles that happen to us as a result of our giving, may decide to do the same.

He does it so that the more we have the more we can give; so that, as true administrators of his goods, we make all things circulate in the community around us; so that what was said of the first Christians may be repeated: ‘There was not a needy person among them’. (Acts 4: 34)

Don’t you feel that in this way you too help to give a safe and steady soul to the social revolution that the world awaits?

  ‘Give, and it will be given to you.’

When Jesus said these words, undoubtedly he was thinking in the first place of the reward we will receive in heaven. But the reward we receive on this earth is already a foretaste and a guarantee of what will be ours in heaven.

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