Blood Tests

Pause for Thought

From Father Brian D’Arcy, a Catholic Passionist priest.

This weekend has shown us a wonderfully generous side of human nature; millions of pounds were raised for Children in Need. It’s my experience that when times are tough people share what little they have more willingly. We always go the extra mile to help children anyway.

So often what we see depends on what we’re looking for. We’ve got life in perspective when we realise that it’s not how much you’ve got but how much you’ve given that makes the difference.

It’s not how much you’ve won but how much you’ve done.

At the end of life it’s not how much you’ve saved, but how much you’ve sacrificed that counts.

Mother Teresa, who spent her life helping the poorest of the poor, often shocked her helpers by reminding them, and us, that unless we give until it hurts, we are merely sharing with the poor what is theirs by right

Generosity is giving more than you can; justice is taking less than you need, she preached.

In the Gospels Jesus praised a poor widow woman who put a couple of coppers in the collection box, but ignored the rich people who had given large donations. The rich had plenty left over in their pockets after they donated, but the poor widow gave every cent she had in this world. The value of a gift should be judged by what it costs the donor, he said. True generosity is not measured by how much we give, but by how much we have left over after we’ve given. We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give.

You’re not really wealthy until you have something money can’t buy. Or as Bob Hope put it: “If you haven’t got charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.”