Tiny Tim's gifts to others may seem tiny at first: his cheerful, uncomplaining attitude towards life, his beautiful smile, his genuine and spontaneous love for others. Yet, these are the gifts that all of us can give daily which God uses to lighten the loads and the lives of others.
There is a woman in the nursing home where my mother is a resident, whose name is Dolores. She is mentally very aware, but her fingers are badly crippled with arthritis and she uses a wheelchair. At first I felt sorry for her, because she is living in an institution instead of a home, among so many people afflicted with dementia and Alzheimer's. Yet every time I see her, she has a gentle smile on her face, and talks graciously to everyone, even the moodiest residents. The nurses and aides love her. She tells me "I am blessed to be here." When I visit with her as I feed my Mom, her cheerfulness blesses me.
If we believe that our lives are blessed, and we are aware of all that we have in life to be grateful for, we automatically are cheerful, loving, generous individuals, whose affirming influence reaches far beyond what we can begin to imagine. Robert Louis Stevenson, author of "Treasure Island," said "To be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence and unkindness, - these are the gifts which money cannot buy."
When I was in Grammar School at St. Joseph University School on Main Street, the Sisters of St. Joseph had the same small Christmas gift for the students every year. They brought us all into the gym and showed us a short film - no words, only background music - of Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Little Match Girl." It made me cry every year.
(The Danish Hans Christian Andersen was also author of the beloved fairy tales "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid" and "The Ugly Duckling.")
"The Little Match Girl" movie really didn't need dialogue. It told the story of a cold New Year's Eve on which a poor little girl tries to sell matches in the street. She has no success. But she's afraid to go home because if she doesn't bring any money, her father will beat her. She finds a corner nook where she can rest and, giving up on selling any matches, she begins lighting them to try to keep herself warm. She is already shivering from cold and beginning hypothermia.
In the matches' glow she sees lovely visions of Christmas trees and Christmas feasts. Then the girl looks into the night sky and sees a shooting star. She remembers that her grandmother, now dead, once told her that a shooting star means that someone is dying and going to Heaven. As she lights the next match, she sees a vision of her dead grandmother, the only one in her life to treat her with love and kindness. She lights match after match to keep the vision of her grandmother alive as long as she can. Running out of matches, the child dies and her grandmother carries her soul to Heaven. The next morning, passers-by find her dead in the nook and feel pity for her.
Strangely enough, I never felt resentment at the nuns for making me cry during such a joyous season. Their small film became, in God's hands, the great gift of conscience. Year after year, they reminded us and re-sensitized us to the presence of the poor among us. Quietly the sisters were asking us: will you be a passer-by, who sees the poor from a distance and feels impersonal pity for them? Or - will you help take care of the little match girls among us?
In June of 1847, Hans Christian Andersen traveled to England and happened to meet Charles Dickens at a party. The two men had the opportunity to visit on the veranda. Later Andersen wrote in his diary "I was so happy to see and speak to England's now living writer whom I love the most."
The two authors respected each other's work because they had something in common: they both endured poverty and other abuses as children and wrote with authority and compassion about the poor and the underclass, especially children. Through God's grace, each man was able to transform his sufferings into the blessed gifts of stories which have taught many generations of readers about love and compassion.
We don't have to be financially rich to make a difference in this world. All of us can choose to be rich in love as we give what ever we can give - time, presence, presents, donations. Mother Teresa says "It is not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving." Love is the gift we give which costs us nothing and yet is so priceless that God can use it to bind up the wounds of the entire world.