PEOPLE OF RESURRECTION - GIVING

Wednesday of the Easter Week

April 3, 2024 - Acts 3: 1-10; Luke 24: 13-25

A sign of the people of Resurrection, pointed out by the Word today: Giving. They shall be "giving" people! They give because they have been given; they give because they believe in a God who gives, gives without measure or conditions. Giving is an essential quality of God. God, we know, has always been giving - the whole creation, the gift of our life and everything is a gift from God, right up the only Son of God given up for our salvation. That is why the people of God are identified by their capacity to give! Here we can reflect on this "giving" at three levels:

Firstly, the readiness to give. The act of giving has to be necessarily preceded by the readiness to give. If not, it is obviously a forced giving and it shall bear none of its merits. The people of God are distinguished more by their readiness to give, than by what they give. 

Secondly, the choice of what to give. One significant question that emerges when we think about the readiness to give is, whether the person who is ready to give would have anything to give. Not all who are ready to give, have something to give and on the contrary, not everyone who has something to give, has the readiness to give. Therefore the question is, if the people of the Resurrection are those who give, what do they give - not so much from what they have as from what they are. Self-giving is the characteristic giving of the people of Resurrection - if we have died with him, we shall rise with him too. They are people who are ready to give as the Lord gave, that is, of oneself. And that way, they rise, they are born to new life, in giving of oneself. They recognised the Lord, the Gospel says today, in the breaking of the bread, which was an essential symbol of Christ's self-giving. They immediately recognised it. 

Thirdly, the highest form of giving that the people of Resurrection can practice, is giving the Risen Lord to the other, to the others, to the world. Gold and silver, is not what they are actually called to give, but Christ and the power of Christ. What we have we give, said the apostles at the Beautiful Gate: this is a key to undersand. We can give only what we have - it is an obvious lesson. So, if we are called to give Christ, then we would require to possess Christ; that is, we need to be constantly in touch with the Risen Lord, in order to have the Lord within us and only if we have the Lord, we can give the Lord. People of Resurrection, give, they give of themselves, they give the Risen Lord to the world around.