Love Yourself and Be Generous
January 7, 2025
Love Yourself and Be Generous
Hello! How is each and every one? Happy New Year of Hope full of Faith and Love 2025!!! May I be nostalgic with each one of you? Nine months after March 25 when the angel Gabriel was sent by God to Mary to announce to her that God has chosen her to be the mother of His only Begotten Son, Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem on December 25. God also chose St. Joseph to be the spouse of Mary and foster father of Jesus. A star shown in the heavens to announce and guide the shepherds to the manger to adore the child Jesus. Herod the King then did not get a chance to get rid of the child of God as he intended.
There were other Kings, the Magi, who were guided by
the star in the East to adore the child. They have come with gifts of gold,
frankincense and myrrh to offer to the child; He is God and King of the
Universe; He is adored and glorified in prayer and offerings; He is the Savior
and Redeemer through His death on the Cross.
Last Sunday the Church with each and every one of us
celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany of Jesus with the words: “Behold, the Lord,
the Mighty One, has come; and the kingship is in his grasp, and power and
dominion.”
Do you know of any other way to welcome and live
this year of Hope, Faith and Love 2025? There is no other way to go but to
believe, trust and love. First and foremost is to believe completely in God, to
hope and trust completely in God, and to love God completely. He is, He was, and He will always be!!! He is the Emmanuel, God with us. He is the only one in control. Everything is His; each and every one of us
is His. There is nothing we can call our
own; not even our own selves.
We had an amazing conversation this morning at
breakfast time.
“So and so is sick”.
“With what?”
“Amazing I have not gotten sick! Usually I get sick in December.”
“O, be thankful; just give thanks”.
“That is good you are happy here.”
“Ha, does that mean that those who are sick are not
happy?”
“Where do you want to go? Do you want to go to?”
How about you?”
“So and so, where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere Our Lord wills. I am always happy where He wills me to be. I just need to adjust and adapt. I have neither right nor privilege to choose.”
Wow! What a
joy! I just received a Christmas card from the mailbox brought in and handed to
me right this very moment. It is from Mariluz. Thank you, Mariluz. Three sheep
keep the baby Jesus warm and safe.
This coming Sunday Jesus will be baptized. We will be celebrating His baptism. Do you know the date of your baptism? The day when the doors of the Church opened up to you who has just become a child of God in His Church?
What a providential photo! While cleaning my room yesterday I found a little round container with several small baby Jesus figurines like the one below except for the crib.
That day being the last day of the Christmas Season, I think it is opportune to have a graphic possession of the infant Jesus with your person – as they say materialize what is spiritual. What do you think?
Let us now continue with the chapter on our divine longing for trust (From Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 8).
The Heavenly Virtue of Generosity: The Antidote to Greed
Charity is the form, mover, mother and root of all virtues.—St. Thomas Aquinas
Generosity (or charity) is the authentic means of addressing the ache that is our divine longing for trust. Many people think of generosity or charity as something we do for other people. Most of us—myself included—are fairly self-centered. We don’t particularly like doing anything if we can’t see that it has a direct benefit for us. Despite the fact that, superficially, charity is about other people, generosity is really an act of brave defiance. When we are generous to others with our treasure, talent, and time, we laugh in the face of Satan, who want to persuade us that giving of ourselves will result in our doom. The reason St. Thomas Aquinas calls charity the “form, mover, mother and root of all the virtues” is that being charitable reminds us that God gives us everything we have so that we can use it to work for the good of others.
When we practice defiant acts of charity and generosity, we stare at the
gun Satan points at our heads, the gun loaded with bullets of want, lack, fear,
and chaos, and instead of cowering, we laugh at him and begin to dance.
There are few things braver than charity.
If you doubt it, think of the feeling you get when the collection basket
comes around. Assuming that doing so wouldn’t
actually prevent you from paying your bills, what could be braver than defying
that natural tendency to root around in your wallet for the smallest bill and
instead donating what you are actually capable of giving? Do you think, for one minute, that it isn’t
Satan we’re fighting with as we scrounge around for the smallest amount we can
give? If battling the devil doesn’t
demand bravery, I don’t know what does.
What you actually give to the church or any other charity is between you and God. That said, however much you give, the reason we tend not to give as much as we could is because of greed, the fear that if we don’t hold on to everything we can, we might not be okay.
Generosity is the virtue that challenges us to overcome this grasping fear. Moreover, despite the fact that others benefit from our acts of charity, we are the greatest beneficiaries. A major study by the University of British Columbia found that when given the choice to spend money on themselves or others, people who are more financially generous to others are significantly happier than people who spend the same amount on themselves (Dunn, Aknin, and Norton, 2014).
In particular, they noted research that shows how generosity benefits brain function by stimulating the reward centers of the brain and decreasing the production of the stress chemical, cortisol (Harbaugh, Mayr and Burghart, 2007; Dunn, Ashton-James, Hanson, and Aknin, 2010), and has been demonstrated to increase the happiness of people all over the world, regardless of whether they are rich or poor. It is as close to an established fact as you can get in the social sciences: the more you give what you can to benefit others, the happier you are.
In fact, although researchers found that people who give money are happier than people who don’t give anything, people who give both money and time are even happier than those who give money alone!
This leads to a second way we can be generous to others: by being present. Earlier in the book, I shared the story of my friend who took the time to not only give a homeless man a few dollars but also made the effort to learn his name and find out how the man took his coffee. My friend’s willingness to be present in that moment and refuse to treat the man as merely a charity case but as a person set him apart from many others. We may give from our resources, but our presence and our willingness to make the time for relationship is the gift that matters more.
Being generous with our money and time helps to satisfy our divine longing for trust because we are demonstrating that we accept the lack of control we have in life, and we are connecting with the perfect love of God that casts out the fear that makes us hold on to everything we have “just in case.” We are embracing God’s call to be as generous to others as he is to us. If others can count on us to be generous to them, with all our weakness, fears, and imperfections, how much more can we count on God to be generous with his abundant treasure in this life and the next?
Indeed we are simply instruments in
the hands of the Holy Spirit. If and
when we are able to be generous with our time, talents and resources it is
because the Holy Spirit acts in each one of us and makes things happen in spite
of ourselves. What matters most is that
you and I allow Him to do so. Just keep attuned
to Him and say yes to Him always and no to yourself.
In this new year of hope let you
and I believe and aim at making ourselves better persons, holier, and more pleasing to
God more and more each day and let us allow others to do the same, believe and aim
at making themselves better persons, holier and more pleasing to God more and
more each day. Let us enjoy doing so and
enjoy seeing God smile at us every step of the way. And how are you and I going to achieve this
aim? How? By taking good care of the
child Jesus in your life and in mine.
Let you and I agree to follow Jesus, Mary and Joseph from here
onwards. Let you and I attend Jesus’
Baptism this coming Sunday, invite the rest of the family and participate in
the Holy Mass with dignity, with attention and with devotion. Then let us make time and effort to read His
life, words and teachings in the Bible every day at least 15 minutes of the
day. Then also talk to Him about what we have just read and everything else
that concerns us, makes us wonder during the day. And then have a wonderful day! Somebody just shared the photo below.
Isn’t she a delight to behold? You and I can also be the youthful child of God by
always considering that God is our Father and you and I are His beloved
children.
See you
in the next post,
“May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and
laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us
together again.”
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
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