Sell your belongings and give alms

11 AUGUST (Lk 12,32-48)

In the Old Testament the abundance of material goods was a sign of an amazing blessing from the Lord. Poverty, misery were no signs of an abandonment of the Lord. Everything changes in the New Testament. Jesus invites his disciples to poverty in spirit, which must become full freedom from the things of this world. The Christian has only one task to carry out in history: making the things of this world an instrument of most pure love. This happens when everything is given in alms.

Jesus Christ gave also his body in alms. Thieves could not steal it. Worms had no time to consume it. He gave everything to his father in a sacrifice of alms for the conversion of the world. The Father gave it back to him risen, glorious, spiritual, immortal, transformed into light, into an entirely angelic body. But every day Jesus gives his body as alms. We feed on Him in order to live, walk, go forward, progress towards Paradise. He is our perpetual alms.

Unfortunately, many of his disciples today no longer feel the need to resort to this charity of Christ Jesus, that is always new, current, full, holy and perfect. This charity of Christ the Lord is what fills the heart of truth, justice, peace, mercy, forgiveness and true holiness. Upon receiving this divine charity, in our turn we become alms for the whole world. This is the essence of a disciple of Jesus: making himself alms with his body, his spirit and his soul, with what he is and has for all his brothers who live in spiritual and material need. However, without the alms of Jesus Christ in our hearts, never will we become alms of love, truth, justice and holiness for every other man.

Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your belongings and give alms. Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Then Peter said, “Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?” And the Lord replied, “Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute (the) food allowance at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so. Truly, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, to eat and drink and get drunk, then that servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the unfaithful. That servant who knew his master’s will but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will shall be beaten severely; and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating shall be beaten only lightly. Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.

Time is short, something insignificant in relation to eternity. Yet – and this is its extraordinary spiritual heaviness – it was given us so that we mature in it the right to enter into blessed eternity. It must be live entirely in relation to eternity. Ancient theological and mystics said: sub specie aeternitatis. Is not man perhaps on the horizon of time and eternity? In a minute he is in time, in the other he is already in eternity. If he does not live time according to truth, he might not have eternity according to truth. Time spent falsely fructifies for us a false eternity, that is of darkness and death. For this reason we must commit ourselves to walk in the will of God with a right conscience, purity of intention, humility of heart and meekness of spirit.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints give us the truth of time.