7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!
12 “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 7
This is about a woman who is about to come home riding a bus. Let us call her Badet. But before going home, she went first to a shop near the bus station to buy Rosquillos for pasalubong. She bought two packs, one for herself to eat and the other for her siblings. While waiting for her trip, she sat on the waiting benches. She placed her bag on her left onto an empty seat. One Rosquillos was on her right. She noticed an old man, sitting next to her Rosquillos. She checked her bus tickets when suddenly the old man opened the Rosquillos. She unbelievingly watched the man as he got one piece of the biscuit and ate it. So she also got one piece to get even with the man and he saw the man smiling a mysterious smile, not showing his teeth, actually. The man got one again and she also did the same, and Badet could only tell herself, “What a thick-faced old man, huh”. Until finally, only one piece was left and the man smiled, got the last piece, broke it and gave the half to Badet. Badet, still not believing what just happened, went on her way, quite mad. She went into a bus, placed her bag into the placement above her seat. She got her phone inside her bag and guess what she saw – 2 packs of Rosquillos, unopened and definitely uneaten.
So what was the morale of the story? Many of us are like Badet. Generous but only to a certain point. We hold back in giving just to save some things for our self. The old man is like our God. Sometimes, we hear Him inviting us to help others, to be good to our friends, to be a neighbor to strangers. The Gospel says “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you”. We sometimes think that a lot of things are taken from us and that we still are asked for more – our money, time, service, love. We often forget that in giving, it is us who actually receives. To think, that what the old man asks is just her sweet “Thank you”.
Above all our seemingly heroic giving and generosity, we must remember the ultimate gift of God. That is, the gift of love. For God so loved the world, He gave us His only Son, Jesus Christ our Savior, His most precious One. This generosity can also be seen in Jesus' total surrender to His Father's will - to give His life as a ransom for many. He did not spend His time dreaming of His ambitions in life. He did not dream to be a scholar and be the wisest man on the planet. He did not dream any of the stuff we usually dream of today. Imagine yourself not dreaming to be a successful engineer. He let go of His human desires. In a way, He actually let go of His life. That, for me, is the greatest act of generosity - to give your life to somebody who isn't even worth it.
The Gospel reminds us that because our Father is generous, we should ask Him. We don’t own anything and we definitely do not know everything. We are so focused on the practical details of life, we are thinking, "oh, i'll just give money to this beggar, he could probably get through the day". But more than money, all we need is love. And when we think we don't have enough, let us remember that we have a generous Father who gives us good things when we ask Him of it. We think we ought to be generous, but most of the time, we have to be humble first and ask the Father for help and guidance. Because before we could truly give, we must first receive Him in our lives.
So, let us ask, and it will be given to us; seek, and we will find; knock, and it will be opened to us.
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