The Law of the Gift

By Engr. Carlos V. Cornejo

This law of the gift is one of the great legacies of Pope St. John Paul II.  For those of you who don’t know St. John Paul II, especially the millennials, he was the Pope of the Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005. He was a great Pope who wrote many books and encyclicals, who founded the World Youth Day, helped converted Russia from being a communist country to a democratic one, and helped flourish vocations to priesthood and religious life in the Church during his papacy.

The law of the gift teaches us that “our being increases in the measure that we give it away”.  When we are generous with giving ourselves to others, we attain growth in being as opposed to just having.

When we make others happy, we make ourselves more happy.  When we share our wealth, we have more of it.  When we share more time with our wife and kids, our relationship with them will prosper and we will discover that deep happiness in family life.

This is the “gift of self” that St. John Paul II would always repeat in his encyclical letters.  It is the definition of love.  Love is to will or to want the good of others.  It is a love that does not mean total self-forgetfulness of oneself but the possessing of oneself that because you are overflowing with joy (because God has been very good to you) that you want to share that joy to others.

Remember that we ought to love ourselves first before we can love others.  Nobody hates himself or herself and says, “Anyway, I am hopeless and worthless, I might as well give myself away and help others.”

On the contrary, unhappy people, have a strong tendency to hurt other people.  But people who give themselves away, are happy people overflowing with joy in the Lord, that they want to share that joy in others.  And guess what happens, the joy in them multiplies.

When we hold on selfishly to the gifts God gives us, they get rotten with us.  Gifts are meant to be given away.  If you hold on to your gifts and don’t give it away, it stops being a gift and becomes a self-serving gift which is the definition of selfishness.

When we make our talent exclusively for our interests and does not serve others, it inflates our ego and brings along with it all other vices such as greed, envy, and craving for honor.  When our wealth is just for us, it destroys us and makes us slaves to money.  T

hink of the Prodigal Son, who said to his father, “Father, give me the share of inheritance that falls to me.”  (Luke 15:12)

Bishop Barron would say, the prodigal son’s statement to his father, if you observe carefully, referred to himself twice, “give me” and “falls to me”. It is to emphasize the obsessive focus of the prodigal son in enriching himself.

The eventual loss of the prodigal son’s wealth, was nothing compared to the loss of happiness he experienced when “He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.” (Luke 15:16)

In times when we tend to become apprehensive in sharing our time, talent and wealth to others because we feel we might be left with nothing for ourselves, let us put our trust in the Lord who does not get outdone in generosity, and who always “increases our being in the measure that we give it away” (St. John Paul II).