Plenty Out of Poverty

I recently had occassion to be reminded of the story of the lady who gave her last alm, and in doing so gave more than all the rich who gave only a small percent of what they had. Throughout the course of the conversation, something was pointed out - something that, really, should have been obvious to a theology major, had I ever bothered to think about it - that passage can mean more than money.

The point is that the woman refered to gave all that she had to God, not just that she gave Him money. It might not be our calling to put every last cent we make into a collection basket, but that doesn't mean there aren't many other ways in which we can give Him everything. Nothing we do in God's name should be done half-heartedly. However it is that we are serving God, in our vocation, at Mass, in the love we give the people around us and the services we do for them - if we don't put our best effort into those services, we are not giving all we have to God. We're only giving half, or a quarter, or whatever percentage of our efforts we bother to put to use at that moment in time. If we look at our neighbor and say, "I'll do only this much for you," we're a rich man giving only a portion of what we have in abundance. But when we can look at our neighbor, or look to whatever service it is we're performing, and say, "Here is everything I can give to you or do for you," we're like the poor woman who out of love gave all she could. However little that service might be, it's always a great service because we gave the most and best we had, and worth much more in God's eyes than the larger services we put no care or effort into.