Day Two of Lent

In my attempts to better understand the Catholic faith and my own journey converting, I'll be spending this Lent doing a daily reflection of things I've learned. The faith encourages reflections on subjects like this (even the Pope reflects!) so I figure I'll reflect through writing. As always, my understanding of this is noobish so forgive any wrong conclusions and do feel free to correct me where needed. Here we go. 


Today's reflection wasn't superbly in-depth, at least not in the writing itself, but a phrase did strike me quite well. One I was thinking about all as I went through work tonight: "All creation -- including my possessions -- belong to God."

On the face of it, it doesn't seem THAT astounding. This is basic Bible 101 here; God made the Earth, God made you and God has made everything so it belongs to God. Sunday School stuff, right?

But when I first read it, my mind took a different approach. Maybe it's because I'm in a mindset where I'm actually giving some thought to what I'm reading or maybe it's just me reading too much into it, but the phrase made me think not of the material things that I possess -- my (old but still awesome) car, my laptop, my smartphone, my money -- but rather the other things I possess.

You know, the qualities/talents that I have that make me ... me. God created those, right? I possess those qualities/talents, right? Seems like the phrase can carry more weight. So, if those qualities/talents are there and belong to God, using them for his purposes seems a good plan.

I strive to do so as often as I can, as most do I imagine. I think I'm better at it than I was, but there's always room to grow, that's what makes us so great a species. We constantly have the ability to improve and get better. That doesn't necessarily mean we will, but we have that ability.

Today's focus was on almsgiving in the black book (or the guidebook as I like to call it). The phrase above was directed about material things I think, but I don't have a whole lot of material things to give, really. But you know what I can give? My talents. My time.

At the end of the day, anyone can write a check and toss it into an offering plate. Few can take the time to spend a day helping those in need in the trenches.

Thanks for reading, folks. God Bless.