“Prayer with fasting is good. Almsgiving with righteousness is better than wealth with wickedness. It is better to give alms than to store up gold, for almsgiving saves from death, and purges all sin. Those who give alms will enjoy a full life” (Tobit 12:8-9).

The Season of Lent will soon be upon us (Ash Wednesday is March 6), so it is time to give some thoughts to what we will be doing for Lent. Most people give something up for Lent – like chocolate, coffee, potato chips. For a few years, I would give up television. All of that is a form of fasting, and if done for the proper reason, to make up more aware of the hungry in the world, or to restore our perspective of the item in terms of our relationship with God, then fasting is a great Lenten practice. In fact, fasting is one of the three marks of Lent; together with prayer and almsgiving. Next weekend, we will have a guest columnist who wrote a great article on fasting, in this case abstaining from meat on Fridays.

Since we are kicking off the Annual Catholic Appeal this weekend, I thought it would be an appropriate time to reflect a bit on the practice of almsgiving. As the quote from the Book of Tobit above indicates, almsgiving is seen as being better than either fasting or prayer alone. Why? Simply because almsgiving involves both prayer and fasting.

Almsgiving is giving to the poor. Most of the time it involves giving money, but it can also include giving food, clothing, and other goods that meet the physical needs of the poor. Yet almsgiving is more than just philanthropy. While giving to a sister or brother in need, almsgiving is also a giving to God. It is recognizing the image and likeness of God in the person in need, so to love them as we love God Himself.

Almsgiving also involves fasting, because the giving involved is sacrificial. That means not just giving from our surplus wealth, but giving up something for ourselves so that we can give it to those in greater need. When I was a high school chaplain we tried to teach the students that. Before Thanksgiving, we would have a food drive for the local Soup Kitchen. We found out that the students, who were mostly from upper middle-class families, would just go into their family pantries and grab some cans and boxes of food. Of course, the food helped the poor, but it was not almsgiving because it did not involve any sacrifice. So we asked them to give up something from the cafeteria for a week – a dessert, or a soda – and use that money to go buy a couple of cans of food. Not everyone did it, but those who did said that it gave their giving a whole new meaning.

As with anything, almsgiving is easier if we have a plan. So before Lent decide who you are going to gives alms to. Then decide what sacrifices you are going to make to raise the goods that you are going to give to those in need, and then finally, decide how you will pray for those in need during the Lenten season.

If your Lenten Almsgiving is successful, hopefully it will bear fruit in your ongoing almsgiving, which includes the tithing we are invited to do to support the parish, the diocese, and the Church at large. A plan for tithing involves the “4 P’s”: Planned, Priority, Percentage, Progressive. Planned means designating money in our budgets to give. Priority means giving to God first before other expenses. Percentage means giving a percentage of your income, and not just a dollar amount (“tithe” means 10%, but you could start at a smaller percentage, say 5%). Finally, Progressive means increasing the percentage regularly, say once a year or if you receive a raise or promotion.

Jesus presented almsgiving as a necessary part of Christian life: "when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" (Mt 6:2-3). He does not say IF you give alms, but WHEN. Like fasting and prayer, almsgiving is non-negotiable.

Finally, St. Paul says it well, “Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).