Generosity Multiplies Blessings

I have personally experienced this truth that generosity indeed, multiplies blessings. These past weeks the volunteers who joined me last March and May in our Babuyan Islands Mission outreach were featured in a couple of news programs on television. Since it is again the opening of the school year, 24 Oras news program of GMA7 and CNN Philippines featured the work of our volunteers who go out of their way to help bring school supplies to remote communities in our country. Our volunteers may not be rich financially, but I could say that they are generous in terms of their time and talents in reaching out to the less fortunate.

Being ever grateful with the blessings they have received, they pay it forward to others and inspire them to do the same. Somebody shared on Facebook, a quotation which says: “When God blesses you financially, do not raise your standard of living. Raise your standard of giving.” In our small Chapel of Our Lady of Manaoag in General Santos City, there is a place for lighting candles. And since we also bought the candles that we provide, there is a small box there where people can drop P2.00 for each candle that they light. Every two or three months, I would open that box to collect the coins that were dropped there and we will use it to buy candles. But to my surprise, I do not only find P1.00 or P5.00 or P10.00 coins in the box. There are many paper bills, sometimes P50.00, P100.00 or even P500.00! I do not suppose that those who dropped P500.00 in the box lighted all the candles that were there. Probably it was just out of their gratitude and generosity that they wanted to give more than what is asked for.

Sometimes when people give, it is against their will, or they are just forced to do so. That is why some people give but it hurts. What people need to learn is how to give cheerfully, how to give without being hurt.

These past weeks, I together with our volunteers, have been witnesses to blessings brought about by other peoples’ generosity. The response to our appeal for donations for school supplies which we will bring to the children in the Mountain Province is just overwhelming. People would tell us that they are not rich, just ordinary employees or laborers. But they went out of their way to donate a few pesos or a few pencils, when they heard on radio or saw on TV what our volunteers were doing for the poor school children. Indeed, generosity multiplies blessings.

Mother Teresa said, “We often hear people say ‘Give ‘til it hurts’. But should it not be ‘give ‘til it hurts no more?’.”