The sixth word in my Lent lexicon is:
GENEROSITY.
One of the three pillars of Lent practice is almsgiving. It’s a call, not only to share what we have, but to do it to with an open and generous heart. Today we’re celebrating one of our congregational saints, St Frances of Rome.
She brought up a large family and did a great deal to help the poor and the sick of Rome, sharing her resources of time and money with generosity and sensitivity. She is one of a very small number of married women who are saints.
Her generosity is obvious in her almsgiving, in the hospital she built, in the priest she funded to visit plague victims and in her generous almsgiving. But I see it most clearly in the way she cared for the poor. After she washed and mended their clothes she wrapped them in lavender before returning them to their owners:
“These she washed and mended with care and thoroughness, as if they were to be used by the Lord himself, then she folded them carefully and put them away in lavender.”
This small detail acknowledges that generosity is not just about meeting material needs, but about recognising and honouring the humanity of those who have less than us. Frances recognises this. The gospel for the feast is the story of the prophetess, Anna. Luke tells us that:
“She never left the Temple, worshipping day and night with fasting and prayer.”
Frances also spent time in prayer. It is this that enables her to develop the open hearted generosity that touched so many lives.
Where are you learning to be generous this Lent?