The story was simple and brief. One afternoon many years ago in Masinloc, a small town in the Philippines, Fr. Tom was hearing confessions. The young girl parted the curtains of the confessional. She held a kaymito, a star apple in her hand. She asked Fr. Tom if he would like the star apple. Fr. Tom answered, “Yes, if you want to give it, I would enjoy it very much.” The fruit exchanged hands. The little girl turned around and walked away.
I’m sure that young girl has long forgotten the incident. Fr. Tom went on with his ministry there and many other places. Many years after that Fr. Tom described how generous the simple act was. He gave numerous other examples of the kind of poverty the child lived in. They had very little in the way of worldly goods. Few were the prospects for any change in their situation. However, the poverty was not the point. The point was that this child “captured the essence of love and was a giver.”
That generous act reminded me of something that happened many years ago. Two men walked in from their remote barrio to accompany me back to the barrio to celebrate their yearly fiesta. One carried the suitcase that contained the chalice and vestments for the celebration of Mass. The other carried another bag of unknown content. It took us eight hours to walk to the barrio. As you can imagine, the bags were good and heavy by that time. When they opened the second bag, it turned out that it contained a few cans of Coke, a couple of bottles of beer, sardines, and a jar of marmalade. This was for the priest, me.
“The significant point for Fr. Tom was that this plain Filipino girl who never struggled with the definition of love, exemplified it by giving him one of the few things she had in life. This child captured the essence of love and was a giver.”
So, one of the men had walked into town one day, stayed overnight and walked back the next day carrying a bag just so the priest could have what they figured the priest would like. I doubt if these two men have thought of it since. I have. Anyone who has worked with those who don’t have a lot has had the same type of experience. They share what they have. The one receiving the gift has to accept it with grace, even though the giver might need the gift much more than the one who is receiving it. But that is not the real challenge.
The nagging question always is can the person receiving the gift respond with that quality of generosity. Maybe that is one reason why Jesus said to poor need to have the gospel preached to them. It is so that after they hear it, they can preach it back to us, challenging our generosity in the process.
When people are generous, everyone is touched by the love of God. The giver and the recipient all experience God’s goodness. It helps to make sense of the statement we constantly hear from those returning from a missionary experience. “I received a lot more than I ever gave.”
The Gospel always turns things upside down, doesn’t it?
Columban Fr. Brendan O’Sullivan now lives and works in the U.S.