圣诞节:奉献与分享

The spirit of giving and sharing - not only this Christmas season but all year round

圣诞节就要到了。在这个充满喜庆、奉献和分享的时刻，你准备给亲朋好友献上什么礼物呢？奉献与分享是圣诞精神的核心。但不仅是在浓浓的节日气氛中，在生活中的每时每刻，我们都应该对那些需要帮助的人们伸出援手，献上自己的一片爱心。

The spirit of giving and sharing is at its peak during the Christmas season. People are so generous to dole out gifts, money and other things to people they care about, and at times to charity, too. This innate feeling in us is always there. It's not only for special seasons like the holidays that we should be able to give and share whatever we have in abundance. It must likely be the instinctive feeling in us that we should be willing to share and give something all year round especially to those who are in need.

The holiday feeling is all around us. The malls are all decorated with pretty and shiny Christmas decors all around. There's happy Christmas music being heard all over the place. A lot of people are shopping because there are lots of sales and discounts offered. The traffic has gone from bad to worse and more people line up in the bank to get money for their shopping spree. Everybody seems to be in a happy mood complementing the Christmas holiday feeling.

Okay, this is the season where there is a lot of sharing and giving. We would be having parties in our companies and family gatherings where we would have gifts for everybody. There would be plenty of good and delicious foods around and the merry making would last till late into the night. Having said that, we may have to stop for a while and think why we are all in the celebration mood. It's Christmas and it's Jesus' birthday and that alone is enough reason to celebrate

However, if we take time to find the other meaning of Christmas in its simplest term, it is a season to thank God for everything we have for this year. It would be nice to give back to Him through the spirit of sharing and giving to those who are less fortunate in their life.

In my church, our parish priest encourages all parishioners to share some of their blessings to people who have less. There are requests for used clothing, some canned goods and other goodies stuff to be donated to some charities. The usual charities would be children's orphanages, home for the aged, for prisoners in a nearby prison area and for the sick that are still confined in government hospitals. The response has always been very positive and our parish priest can only express gratitude by blessing all of us in church and promising to pray for all of us throughout his lifetime. That would be truly reassuring since we have in our community many priests aside from our main parish priest who would continuously pray for all of us!

The spirit of sharing and giving is innate in all of us. It is just a matter of discovering it in you and finding this deep inside you. If you have found it in your heart to share and give not only during Christmas, but every time you are have the chance to do so, then you are so blessed. I truly believe that giving even only a little is already a lot of help. That wholeheartedness of sharing and giving would come back to you in some other way. You'd be surprised that more blessings would come your way. It may be an unexpected promotion, some problems being solved on their own, some financial help coming from somewhere unexpectedly and a lot more. I'm speaking from experience. I've been blessed so many times from this sharing and giving habit that I have in me.

I try to give what I can no matter how little. I do this thru my church. Everything goes with a prayer that hopefully the people who get these little things would be happy even only for a while. That thought makes me happy, feeling at peace that somehow I was able to do something for people even though I don't know them.

Hopefully, everybody would give a little help. The spirit of sharing and giving doesn't mean that you are spoiling these people thru charity. It's not that; it's just that these people may feel helpless at times, hopeless most of the time and this is where we can come in, that we can show them that we care, we can give them hope and something to live for in their life. It is our way of showing them that their life is worth caring for so that they should be inspired to do better in their life. Thankfully, there is always the goodness in all of us; all we have to do is make use of it this Christmas and through out the years to come.