An Exercise on Gifts

I got assigned an interesting penance at confession a few days ago, and I was not able to make it to Mass for Epiphany due to a snowstorm, so I did the penance as a bit of spiritual writing instead. Running this publicly is meant to inspire anyone who would like to do the same reflection.

My penance was to reflect on three gifts that God has given to me and three gifts that I, like the “Wizard Kings” (in some Romance languages; los Reyes Magos, i Re Magi) of the Epiphany, can give back to God. I found the first part of the question a bit more difficult, not because I’m trying to be ungrateful but because writing about “gifts of God” or “gifts of the Holy Ghost” can be so abstract. Eventually I decided to list diligence about intellectual work, relative material comfort, and genuine interest in sacred things as three aspects of my character and circumstances for which I feel grateful to Him.

The gifts that I can give back to God are were a bit easier: First, I do both fiction and nonfiction writing that’s made many people who read it significantly more open to the sacred, including people with good reason to fear or resent “religion” as it’s structured in their societies—gay people, people who have had traumatizing experiences in the past, members of minority groups where there’s some religious component to the go-to excuses for how they’re treated. Secondly, as a matter of instinct I’m materially generous to poor people, panhandlers and so forth; I know people who are much more so than I am, but also people who are much, much less so. Finally, I tend to be on the punctilious side about things like prayer and Mass attendance.

The reader may notice that the three gifts that I can give back to God correspond, so to speak, to the three gifts that God gives to me. This ought to tell us something, perhaps.