The spirit of the Gospels is large-hearted giving. It could not be otherwise, for their theme is our Lord, and He lived but to give. Let us in this most wonderful week of Pentecost think over his gifts and the manner of His giving, and see how His spirit spread throughout the world.
"Gold and silver I have none," one of His disciples said. And we never hear of our Lord possessing money. The didrachma that He paid for Peter and Himself came as a miracle from the fish's mouth. So money He could not give. But all He had was at the service of any one. All - His divine word spoke to rich and poor, worthy and unworthy; His healing power reached to every kind of sufferer: the leper, the possessed, the halt, and the blind. The power of working miracles, used first by Himself alone, was soon bestowed on the chosen Twelve and then upon the Seventy-two, that the number benefited might be multiplied. His time was so occupied that He had none for Himself - "not so much as to eat bread." He never put off inopportune visitors, and He reproved the disciples because they would send away the little ones and their importunate mothers. He was weary once and sat at the well leaving His Apostles to visit the Samaritan town and obtain food. Bat it was not the rest nor the cool shade of the palms that lured Him. He knew of one coming who needed a word alone, and through whom He could send loving messages to a benighted people. If our Lord had coveted any time it would have been the hours of the night, but they were reserved for the timid and cowardly who dared not approach Him by day. These got no reprimand for their selfish caution. Jesus lit the lamp and waited until the darkness made it safe for the disciple to approach. When Jesus was not wanted "He passed the whole night in prayer." Then even sudden danger or urgent necessity often broke in upon His quiet. Once after a weary day the Apostles embarked and Jesus went alone on a mountain to pray. But a storm arose and the Apostles were in sore need. Jesus walked upon the waters to succor them. What a welcome sight to the tired, drenched, frightened men that bright appearance must have been. But His night's repose was lost, and the hot, weary day began again for Him.
In detail, too, how lavish was our Lord in giving. He had five thousand guests, counting the hungry men alone; multiply the number by itself at least if you would find the women, and by that again if you would know the children - and he fed them with a generous hand: bread and fish there was in plenty, in superabundance, for were not twelve full baskets over! And at the draught of fishes was there need of one hundred and fifty big fishes - of such a quantity that the nets broke and the haul was landed with great difficulty?
See, too, how large-hearted was our Lord's way of doing good. Why need He touch the loathsome leper, why take the cold, clammy hand of the dead, why anoint the sightless eyes of the blind! Why linger about the sick, asking them questions, drawing them near to Him! Why not heal at a distance or by deputy, or by mere command! Ah, why! - because this is our Lord's way, to give without counting the cost, to be unselfish in bestowing what ever it is - time, strength, divine powers.
Jesus is God and He saw into the future. His death was at hand, and separation from all He loved. But His love could know no separation. He must invent a gift that would be a mystical but true living with men. So he took bread and blessed and broke it, and gave Himself whole and entire to the human race for ever. What a gift! What a giving!
Redemption is giving a price for another, and the redemption our Lord wrought was copious, the Scriptures say. He shed His Blood until there was but a mixed stream to flow. He allowed it to be pressed out of Him by the agony of His soul, to be tortured from Him drop by drop by the malice of His enemies. And when His very life failed Him He had still some one to give - a Mother to care for His orphan children, and a mother for those children to love, so that by this exchange of love we might be children of Mary and brethren of His. Our Lord died, but His death brought resurrection, and His ascension was, as it were, a mission Homeward in quest of another gift. "If I go not the Paraclete will not come to you, but if I go I will send Him to you." And he rejoices at the thought of this Comforter, and speaks of Him over and over again as though He would console not only the hearts of the Apostles at the coming separation, but also His own. "You shall lament and weep; you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned to joy." And the joy would be the descent of the Holy Ghost. This Divine Spirit was our Lord's last great gift to His Apostles, and through them to the Church - the Spirit of Truth who was to teach them all things to the end of time.
And once again we look at the manner of this coming, and we find it is a divine dispensing. Gifts so rich are to be had for the desiring that men have become as angels - wise in deliberation, keen in grasping truth, full of knowledge, prudent in counsel, strong in suffering, given to prayer, and restrained by a holy fear of God. And from these gifts come those wonderful fruits, the very sound of which sets our hearts aglow, for they form the end of every man's striving: charity, joy, peace, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith - and the three last gifts, special adornments of our bodies as temples of the Holy Ghost, His by right of our anointing with the chrism that consecrates, and takes possession.
The spirit of the Gospel was large-hearted giving, and as the Gospel spread, men's hearts were opened and their bands dispensed charity, "We see the first Christians dividing their all amongst their poor brethren; we see the sick and wretched cared for wherever Christ's name is sounded; we see splendid buildings rise out of the pence of the poor, slaves are liberated or treated as brethren; a new art has sprung up with Christianity, one learned from the Founder: the art of giving, large-hearted, generous, not counting the cost. And the giving was not money only nor principally, but love and service, the fruit of the brain, of the heart, of the arm; it came soothing, and strengthening, and raising.
Such were the first Christians! Shall we be degenerate children of the saints?
- taken from Light from the Altar, edited by Father James J McGovern, 1906