Share abundantly

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Do With It What You Will

Today is Monday the 10th of August, the feast of Saint Laurence, in the 19th week of Ordinary Time.

In our song today we hear the words of the Suscipe, a prayer known to be prayed by St Ignatius of Loyola: ‘You have given all to me, to You Lord, I return it.’ As you enter into this time of stillness, what can you offer the Lord today?

Listen as Hannah Boesen, with The Porter’s Gate, sings, ‘Do With It What You Will’.

You have given all to me

To you O Lord I return it

Everything I have is Yours

Do with it what You will

3:23

Today’s reading is from Saint Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 9:6-10

The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written,

‘He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;

his righteousness endures for ever.’

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

5:14

Plant Your Fields

We Dream of Eden

Paul tells the Corinthians that the one who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will reap bountifully. St. Laurence took that teaching to its limit: a deacon of Rome entrusted with the Church's wealth; he is remembered for telling the prefect who demanded the treasures be handed over that the poor themselves were the true treasure of the Church. Where in your own life are you sowing sparingly out of caution, when something in you already suspects you could sow more freely?

Paul says that giving should never be reluctant or under compulsion, but cheerful, because God is able to provide every blessing in abundance. What would it take for your own giving of time, attention or resources to feel less like a transaction and more like an overflow of that abundance?

As we listen to the reading once more, notice which phrase about sowing, giving, or abundance catches your attention this time.

8:34

2 Corinthians 9:6-10

The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written,

‘He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;

his righteousness endures for ever.’

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

10:05

Talk to God now about what you find easy to give, and what you hold back. Can you ask Laurence's boldness for yourself where generosity still feels like a risk rather than a gift?

12:22

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be

World without end

Amen