Free of Charge
Memorial of Saint John Bosco, Priest
My dear encountered couples:
If it has never been our personal experience, we all know of people who have spent a fortune on medical bills and are still sick. That’s what happened to this woman in our gospel. She had been having hemorrhages of some kind for twelve years, “exhausted her savings,” we are told, and her health had gotten worse instead of better. That’s when she saw Jesus and went to him for a cure. And he cured her – for free - didn’t charge her a penny.
Do we ever realize that all the good things God do for us are without charge? They are free, gratis, on – on the house. The sun is free, the rain is free, and the air we breathe is free. All the basic ingredients that go into the making and building of things that we have are free.
God provides us the basics without charge. We take them, use them, and make money on them. Even our talents and abilities that God has given us as free gifts, we charge others for our use of them. God never charges, but we do.
And some people really know how to charge! So much so, that it borders on the sinful. To charge more than we need to live on for the use of our talents and abilities, and for our products, is something we all had better reconsider.
Is that why God gave them to us - so we could become rich?
Someday we are all going to be held accountable for any selfish use of what God has given us.
