Give'r

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, April 13th, 2025:
Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

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Isaiah
​50.4-7

​The servant of the Lord said: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens — wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.

“The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.

“I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.

“The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean I was checking in with all my “kids” as we made our way home from the insane, intense, impactful gathering that was World Youth Day in Rome for the Jubilee Year 2000. When I checked in with one young man, he said to me: 
Aurea, I never knew what people meant when they said "You only get as much as you put into it." I get it now. 
He had worked so hard to get to experience World Youth Day – fundraising, spiritual prep, prayer, physical readiness, learning the culture – all of it. During the long hours of our flight home he was processing his experience and realized how much his hard work, commitment, and focus paid off. He gave all he had to the experience and as a result his faith, his life, was forever changed.
Looking back on this moment, I see it as a reminder to… give’r. I have to give my all if I expect, want, desire it all. And for me, that “all” means everything God wants for me. And it is through God’s example of consistently giving to me that I know how to give. As the prophet Isaiah writes… 
The Lord God has given…
The Lord God has opened…
The Lord God helps…
God gave to Isaiah and all the prophets. And wildly, the same God gives as generously to me. All God asks in return is that I too give of myself to others and to God. However, I can often be hesitant in my giving. Why? Because I’m afraid of what I will lose. What part of myself will I lose if I give? What will it cost me? Yet God has given me everything and wants to give me even more. God doesn’t hesitate. Nor should I. After all, in giving myself back to God, He gives me so much more in return. Like the young man at the beginning of this reflection, I need to remind myself that what I put in can bring forth so much more fruit than I think I “might lose.” In being hesitant, I am limiting what God is able to do for, with, in, and through me. How dare I limit God! That’s not fair to God – nor to me, for that matter.  In only seeing the limitations, what I risk losing is a relationship that transforms my life. My giving is a response that builds my relationship with our God that changes me, my life, and my impact on this world.  
Twenty-five years ago a young man reminded me to give’r. Twenty-five years and another Jubilee Year later, God continues to offer me all I could ever dream of. What is my response to Him? To give as best I can, all that I can, because God made me to give’r.




Aurea Sadi

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