I’ve learned from Antony de Mello in his book entitled “Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality (New York: Doubleday, 1992)’’ that spirituality has nothing to do with religion. We may think the opposite, but according to him, spirituality is awareness, working up; it’s not about knowledge nor information. Obviously, we may know what sharing is all about or have some information about it. It remains for us to be sure whether we are aware of what sharing is and what it implies in our daily lives. Recently, I took part in a conference on Xaverian spirituality where Fr. Eugenio Pulcini, SX, insisted on the meaning of spirituality. He said that it refers to something in the world of experience. It is the life of the spirit in us and includes reflection on what is experienced. It is a science of the means, a reality experienced.
Sharing is sometimes confused with “Charity’’. I’ve noticed that in the Bible, while talking about this latter or what it involves, the words “Charity or Love’’ are used. Yet, “Charity and Love’’ are not the equivalent of “Sharing’’. Even though a lover shares, Sharing is not Love. It’s only a part of it. As far as I know, sharing is when you give something from what you have to someone. It's also understood as having something in common. It’s not only linked to materials or goods but to some abstract realities as well. I may think that we already have some knowledge and information about sharing and spirituality. So, what’s the spirituality of sharing? What’s meant by sharing?
In fact, we religious, are accused of being stingy, unable to share ‘’goods’’. We are well known as stingy. It may be one of our qualities or not. It depends on each one of us. Here, we are concentrating on sharing goods, or almsgivings, one of the pillars of the Lenten season. Here, it’s not about prayer and fasting. Saint Paul says, “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.’’ (Rom. 15:1) This passage leads us to remember our Master, Jesus Christ, who, while sharing his love with people, was moved with compassion. Before healing those with disabilities, raising the dead, and giving bread to the hungry, the gospel underlines that he was seized with pity.
Actually, the word compassion is defined as a strong feeling of sympathy for people suffering and a desire to help them. It’s well defined in one of the electronic dictionaries as a deep awareness of the suffering of another, coupled with the wish to relieve it. Thus, our master was moved with compassion, which is first a matter of humanity, a matter of not only feeling but the wish to help as well, a matter of awareness and reality. Jesus’ compassion used to end with “Get up, take your mat, and go home.’’ (Mk 2:11) The spirituality of sharing is to be understood in the context of compassion, which leads us to feel as humans and urges us to cure and appease. Being a human means being able to perceive (matter of seeing) someone’s needs. Then you may add to your humanity your religion, your morals, and whatever else you want, which makes you more human.
Those who think that we are stingy might be right. We are facing two dangers that may prevent us from living or entering into the said spirituality: rationalization and compulsion. I heard stories about religious people who had been deceived by people who disguised themselves as poor while they were not. This disappointment leads some not to give any more almsgivings or not to share. At the beginning of my formation, I was forbidden to give water to a pregnant woman who had asked it of me, and the explanation I received was: “Others may come and ask not for water but more than that.” (Every Thursday, a large number of pregnant women used to come for blessings in our compound.) These situations can prevent us from living the spirituality of sharing. The awareness I’ve been talking about enables us to see and hear with good discernment. As Pope Francis said in his message for this Lenten season, God didn’t wake up and say, I will go to liberate my people. He first saw and heard. “I’ve observed the misery of my people … I’ve heard their cry… Indeed, I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them…’’ (Ex. 3:7-8) It’s a process, a compassion that makes us feel and then go. That is how God looks at the poor and the feeble and sees their misery. I was told that the vow of poverty should enable us to interlock with the poor and feeble so that we can commit together, imagining a way to live a dignified life. We have to welcome, see, and hear before doing and discerning. It’s a process.
It’s to be conditioning, mechanical, and it’s to have compulsion, not virtue, if we think that whenever we see a beggar, we must help him, we must share. Antony de Mello gives an example of his friend who could not pass by a beggar without giving him alms because his mother used to do so. He said it’s compulsion, as we said, not compassion, which is a process. It’s also naive to help someone who could help himself and even help you somehow. There are people who are strong in the sense of Paul, but still they commit themselves to begging. For them, begging is their undertaking. Our process of feeling and acting, of seeing and hearing as our God, will lead us to good discernment. The same Christ who says, “For I was hungry and you didn't share with me’’ is the same who urges us to work. Again, we have to proceed, to see as our God does, to hear, and to endeavor to reach out to the needy, and that is the whole spirituality of sharing.
Overall, if we agree that the spirituality of sharing is a matter of life and experience, we will see the importance of the Lenten season, which, with its three pillars (prayer, almsgivings, and fasting), makes us remember our humanity. Then, we will be able to concretize it by living a life shared with others. It will also be a time and a place of our first love (Hos 2:16–17) that makes us closer to our reality, God, who is Love. “If you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted, then light shall rise for your darkness.’’ (Isaiah 58: 10) Then you will come to enjoy life in the spirit.