THE SHARING SIBLING
One afternoon, a wealthy man was waiting for
the train in a railway station in south India. A poor boy in torn clothes
approached him and begged for some money. He said he was very hungry and did
not get anything to eat on that day. Seeing his pitiable state, the man bought
a packet of lunch from a stall and gave it to the boy. The boy thanked him and
sat on a seat. He opened the packet and started to eat in a hurry. The man was
sure that the boy was really hungry and turned to the pages of a book he was
reading.
Suddenly he noticed that the boy had abruptly
stopped eating and was packing the rest of the meal in a hurry. The man assumed
that the boy was preparing to throw away the rest of the meal into the waste
bin. He rose from his seat and angrily asked the boy why he was not eating the
full meal. The boy was in tears. He told the man that he just remembered his
younger sister who had nothing to eat on that day. In his exhaustion, he had
started the meal forgetting her fate and was sorry for that. He ran with the
packet to his home to share his meal with his hungry sister.
Mother Teresa once said about her unforgettable
experience in a poor family in Calcutta. One day she learned that
a poor Hindu family with several children was starving for several days. She
rushed to the family, carrying in her hands a bag of rice for the family. The
mother of the family thankfully received the bag of rice. The starving woman
then divided the rice in the bag into two halves and went out with one half of
the rice.
When she returned,
Mother Teresa asked her where she had gone. The woman replied that she went to
give a share of the rice to a neighbouring Muslim family which was in a similar
state of poverty and starvation. Mother Teresa was touched by the love and
compassion of the poor lady which made her share her meagre assets with her
starving neighbours. She was happy to see them enjoy the joy of sharing.
Albert Schweitzer
thought and wrote about the "fellowship
of those who bear the mark of pain." Those outside this fellowship
usually have great difficulty in understanding what lies behind the pain.
The early Christian communities displayed
three major qualities: Daring, Caring and Sharing. They had the courage
to practise what they preached and believed, even facing adverse conditions and
persecutions. They showed care and kindness to each other, especially to the
weak, the sick and the poor.
We should be ready to share our possessions with those in greater need. Sir Winston Churchill said, "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."
"The group of believers was one in
mind and heart. No one said that any of his belongings was his own, but they
all shared with one another, everything they had...There was no one in the
group who was in need" {Acts 4:
32-34}.
In his Epistle, St. John wrote, "My children, our love should not be
just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action"
{1 John 3: 18}. "God
is love and whoever lives in love lives in union with God and God lives in
union with him" {1 John 4: 16}.
Worried over the lack of
love among some Corinthians, St. Paul wrote to them his famous words of wisdom
about real love, "I may be able to speak the languages of men and
even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong
or a clanging bell..." {1Corinthians 13:
1-13}.
Love is the language that
Jesus taught his disciples as the universal medium for evangelisation. Love can
be heard by the deaf, seen by the blind and felt even by the new-born and the
mentally retarded.
We may give
without loving; but we cannot love without giving. Love is giving all we can.
Love is like a smile - neither have any value unless given away. Karl Menninger
said, "Love cures people - both the
ones who give it and the ones who receive it." Mother Teresa said, "It is not how much you do, but how
much love you put into what you do that counts."
…………………………………………………………………
© By: Prof.
Dr. Babu Philip, Darsana Academy, Kottayam-686001, Kerala, India
( Former Professor, Cochin University of Science & Technology, Fine Arts
Avenue, Kochi-682016, Kerala, India), Prof. Mrs. Rajamma Babu, Former Professor, St. Dominic's
College, Kanjirappally, Leo.
S. John, St. Antony's Public School,
Anakkal,
Kanjirappally and Neil John, Maniparambil, Ooriyakunnath, Kunnumbhagom, Kanjirappally
Kottayam-686507, Kerala, India.
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