How Can I Help?

A Reflection on the Second Reading for November 16th, 2025:
​Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

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2 Thessalonians
​3.7-12

Brothers and sisters, you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labour we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you.

This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”

For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

​Pause. Pray. Reflect.

What is mine to carry? Well, we are the body of Christ, a family who holds and sustains one another. We are encouraged to lift up the fallen and to give without considering the cost. Perhaps we should carry it all! I wonder, though, if we might also consider that our ceaseless giving may not always leave space for the receiver to also give.

As an emerging therapist, I am often asked to carry what isn’t mine. I am asked to make decisions for those who feel stuck, to bear the responsibility for an improvement in someone’s mental health, or state of life, or relationship status. It’s been my observation that desperation can leave us feeling disempowered and we then turn to others to help us, or save us, or fix us — or worse, we can turn in on ourselves, not asking anyone for anything. 

Now, if you’re reading this blog post, you likely know the next thing I’m going to say: there is but one true Helper, one true Saviour. And yet, even He, though He could change whatever He wanted to, more often invites us to participate in our own redemption, in our own healing. He offers us His limitless power to do so. He also leaves us with some tricky questions for our discernment: What is mine to carry, and what is yours? As members of the body of Christ, where do I end and you begin?

These are questions that lead us into a sea of grey, but they are also questions that can offer us perspective. First, though I am called to charity, at what point is my giving disempowering the other? And second, do I feel that God needs me so that He can work in others? 

Henri Nouwen, in Bread for the Journey, said: “It is often in our absence that the Spirit of God manifests itself.… It was only in Jesus’ absence that his friends discovered the full meaning of his presence.… When we claim for ourselves that we come to our friends in the Name of Jesus — that through us Jesus becomes present to them — we can trust that our leaving will also bring them the Spirit of Jesus. Thus, not only our presence but also our absence becomes a gift to others.”

I often feel helpless if I am not actively participating in acts of service for others. I want to help, to save, to fix. But the Apostle Paul and Henri Nouwen have illuminated a chink in my desires. If trust in God is not present, I am doing this work in my name, rather than in His.

I can tell others their worth, but they won’t know it until they know The One who created them worthy. I can carry others for a time, but my feeble arms will tire, and they will need God’s strength to carry them the rest of the way. I can feed the hungry with bread, but their hunger will only be fully satisfied by the Bread of Life.

As I grow in trust of my Heavenly Father, may I also grow in the comfort that planting a seed of service, and then allowing God to nourish it, may lead my sister into a deeper relationship with The One who provides unceasingly.


​Lori MacDonald

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