ARE WE CLEANSED BY WHAT WE GIVE?

Tuesday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 11:37-41

“How do the rich justify their illegally gotten wealth? By supporting seminarians!” These were the famous words of Fr. Gerald Healy, my very kind and competent Jesuit professor in Moral Theology. It was the years immediately following the fall of the conjugal dictatorship of the Marcoses when Fr. Healy taught us Moral Theology, and the issue on the illegally gotten wealth of the Marcoses and their cronies was almost the daily headline then. Those words of Fr. Healy kept ringing in my ears when I read this last sentence of today’s Gospel: “Instead, give alms from what you have and then indeed everything will be clean for you.”

Almsgiving when done with love can really be a form of penance and therefore cleanse us from our sins. Love does not only cast out all fears; indeed, as the Apostle Paul mentioned in one of his Epistles, it can also cover a multitude of sins.

But what we give must come from what is truly ours, not from what we falsely own because we have stolen from someone. Otherwise, Fr. Healy, who passed away early this year, might rise from his grave and haunt us in the middle of the night, saying, “You see! I told you! How do the rich justify their illegally gotten wealth?” And embarrassed, more than just frightened, we can only answer, “By supporting seminarians, Father.”

By the way, the answer to Fr. Healy’s question can also be “By supporting the Church” or “By supporting charitable projects and institutions” or “By supporting nuns” or “By supporting priests and bishops” or “By supporting poor students” or “By supporting less fortunate families” or “By supporting the sick and the handicapped” etc…. Choose the best answer!

Yes, we do give alms, do we not? But are we cleansed from sin?