The more you love - the more you are generous with your time, your talents, your treasure, your self - the more you prosper. Love is a magnetism that motions others to you, that sets up serendippity, conjures coincidences. You may suffer losses, but spiritually you are always surrounded by and inundated in abundance, an abundance of Love from others and from God. The more you use the Love you have been given well, the more Love you are given.
Because you're generous, you've refreshed others with your love. And so you are refreshed abundantly - through others giving you their time, talent, treasure, and themselves. In your times of dryness, the love of others is your oasis in a desert.
God will not be outdone in generosity. If you follow the Law of the Lord which is the Law of Love, you "are like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in due season; its leaves never wither; whatever they do prospers." (Psalm 1). If you follow the Law of the Lord, your ear will always be attuned to God's voice, what God calls you to do. And if God calls you to it, God will see you through it - providing for you generously.
Katherine Drexel, the daughter of a millionaire, made her debut in society and traveled across Europe. Appalled by the plight of the American Indians, she had an audience with the Pope and asked him to send missionaries to the Indians in Wyoming. The Pope told her "Why don't you become a missionary yourself?"
She did. Women were drawn to her generous mission (Love's magnetism!) so she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. Overcoming objections, sweet-talking Bishops and politicians, getting input from Native Chiefs, she used her inherited millions and then raised more millions to establish schools and missions for Native Americans and African Americans across the West and Mid-West. One of our parishioners at St. Columba-Brigid Parish in Buffalo, Mother Velma Holt, was one of "Katherine Drexel's girls." She fondly remembers the saintly woman cupping each child's face in her hands and saying "You are special. Beautiful. Believe it."
Katherine had a profound love for Jesus' most generous gift of Himself - His Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. And a deep belief in dreaming big. She said once "I looked up in wonder at God's wonderful ways and thought how little we imagine what may be the result of listening and acting on a desire God puts into the heart....Yes, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is with you...Nourish before Him great desires."
I look around the city of Buffalo and see the results wrought by common ordinary people who nourished great desires to do something beautiful for God and then stepped out in faith to follow their hearts and begin the work. A halfway house for ex-prisoners. Educational and job training centers and clinics for the poor. Shelters for refugees and homes for teenagers in trouble and residences for refugees from domestic abuse. Soup kitchens and dining rooms and thrift shops. Residences for immigrants.
A friend of mine wakes up each morning and his simple prayer is "Dear God, tell me what you want me to do today." Sometimes we ask that of God but we're afraid to listen to God's response. Maybe we ignore the dream we have in our hearts, even if He promises us that He will never be outdone in generosity. Can you imagine what this world would look like if more people followed their dreams, trusting that if they were generous in acting, God would generously provide? And if we others affirmed the dreamers and doers with our generous support of time, talent, and treasure?