giving alms - 28th week tuesday

Give alms and everything will be clean for you.

In his commentary on this particular verse Pope John Paul II said that the word alms comes from the Greek word which means compassion or pity.  So almsgiving is not just about giving money or extending help.  It is a feeling of compassion or pity that moves me to extend help.

You see almsgiving can be pitiless.  Our help is practical and easier to the pocket because it is tax deductible.  The money that I give can be surplus income and therefore expendable.  But these may not qualify as alms in the definition of Jesus because alms is first and foremost a feeling of pity. 

And so almsgiving is not always about money.  It can be love, care, a good word, an appreciation, a concern for the well-being of the other.

And almsgiving is not always for the materially poor.   Mother Teresa once said: “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

Jesus said:  Give alms and everything will be clean for you.