Serving our Lord: Be generous and merciful

		Living the Scriptures  with St. Paul University  Catholic Center  Amy Lynch

For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him. But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it. (Wisdom 1:15)

For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake he became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

Not that others should have relief while you are burdened, but that as a matter of equality, your abundance at the present time should supply their needs, so that their abundance may also supply your needs, that there may be equality. As it is written: "Whoever had much did not have more, and whoever had little did not have less." (2 Corinthians 8:14-15)

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Sunday, July 2, 2006) Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24 Ps 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11, 12, 13 2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15 Mk 5:21-43 or 5:21-24, 35b-43

Today's first reading tells us that we are made in the image of God's own nature.

What is God's nature? We know that God is loving, merciful, kind, and generous among many other amazing things. So therefore, we are made to be these things as well. So why aren't we always these things?

The first reading says that "by the envy of the devil, death entered the world." With death came destructive things like envy, pride, greed, and revenge. So because of the envy of the devil, we have to combat these things.

The second reading today gives the most amazing example of God's generosity and mercy: that His son came to the world for our sake and died for our sake. The reading tells us that God did this so that we may learn to help each other and supply each other's needs. This is a different way of saying that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.

So what does supplying someone else's needs mean? What kind of needs do people have? We have spiritual needs, physical needs, and mental/emotional needs. We must help people with these needs.

We can listen to someone who is having a bad day to help his or her emotional well-being or we can donate clothing or food to those who are in need of those essentials.

As far as spiritual needs, we can make sure that the children in our community are getting their questions answered, or we can attend a Bible study and both supply other's needs and have our needs supplied. We can all think about the many needs that we see in our community, so finding needs to fill is not a problem.

But this is not where the story ends. You might say to me, "I can't exactly go around filling everyone's needs because then I would have nothing left to give." You are absolutely right. If after you have gone out and served your community and you are too exhausted to be loving to those around you, I think we may have missed the point. Don't worry; God was way ahead of us on this one (as usual).

The reading later says that "Whoever had much did not have more, and whoever had little did not have less." It is our eagerness and our willingness to give that counts.

We have heard the story in the Gospel of Mark (Chapter 12) in which the widow gave two pennies and Jesus tells the disciples that the widow has given more than the many rich people who gave large sums of money. He knows her heart and that this sum of money is much for her to give.

	Reflection questions • When have you experienced God's generosity and mercy in your life? • How have you helped others meet their needs? When have others helped you?

So we can take a lesson from this: we need to give what we can because God knows our hearts and what we are capable of. He does not desire to burden us, but He does hold high expectations that we will help to fulfill the needs of our neighbors in whatever ways we can.

Amy Lynch is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in elementary education and Spanish. She helps plan and implement Alpha Omega, a large-group weekly gathering at St. Paul University Catholic Center.

St. Paul's Web site is www.stpaulscc.org

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