In the past few months media has been carrying seemingly good news that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet — two of the wealthiest Americans who have now also become two of the biggest philanthropists — have written to other American billionaires to pledge part or half of their property to charity. It is reported that the two have succeeded in getting around 40 of those billionaires to pledge half of their wealth to charities. It is heard that now they plan to come to India to try and persuade Indian billionaires to do the same. While we wait for the results in India with our fingers crossed it would be good to reflect a little on the concept of giving away in charity.
St. Francis of Assisi, a 12th century saint from Italy was the son of a rich cloth merchant. One day after getting tired of his father’s nagging who expected him to take interest in his business, St. Francis decided to give up everything and to embrace a life of poverty to serve Jesus. He experienced a close communion with God and as a consequence composed a prayer titled, Make me a channel of your peace. The second part of the prayer reads, “…O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understa­nd; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pard­oned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life”. It is noteworthy that the Missionaries of Charity recite the whole prayer daily in all centres. While everything said in the prayer is important, the part most relevant to our topic today is, “…For it is in giving that we receive”, which in itself sounds quite contradictory. How could one receive if s/he is giving away? For, what is given is gone from our possession and it does not come back to us.
Among the five pillars on which Islam is built, one of them is, “to give a specific amount of income in charity” and especially when the Muslim community observes the month of Ramzan, it is said that helping the needy with charitable acts is even more meritorious. According to one interpretation, the festival of Eid-ul-Fitr is meant “to distribute” the zakat (tax for charity) accumulated during the month of Ramzan.
Charity in Hinduism is also an important virtue as described by V. Balakrishnan. He holds, “According to Indian scriptures, daanam (giving in charity) is of four kinds: Nityad­aanam is rendered da­ily for the contentment of the donor, Kaanmy­ad­a­a­nam is done in expectation of rewards, Vima­ladaa­nam is offered to please God and Nimithikadaanam brings redemption from one’s sins.”
The Jain religion is too well known for its teachings on charity, particularly the one on aparigrah. It basically asks its followers never to hoard things more than what is necessary for one’s needs. The rest should be given away in charity. In Sikhism, we have the wonderful practice of langar, according to which, everyone, regardless of one’s religion, caste, gender or social status, can go to the gurdwara and have a stomach full of food for free which is provided for by the donations of the devotees.
The Bible is full of teachings on giving and Jesus often spoke about giving and giving generously. “Give and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For, with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you (Luke 6:38)”. For Jesus it was not important how much one gave but that one decided to give. For instance, when he saw a certain poor widow putting in two small copper coins He said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on” (Luke 21:1-4). This is reflected also in the prayer of St. Francis. Following the inspiration from Jesus, Mother Teresa — the icon of charity whose birth centenary we celebrated last month and who almost institutionalised works of charity used to say, “Give till it hurts”.
Thus giving in charity is enjoined by all religions and one also finds authentic examples of rich people making genuine donations, often wishing to remain anonymous to the public, among people of all religions. Once we remember that we cannot carry our wealth to the grave with us, it will surely become much easier to give though meritorious giving is not giving out of one’s riches but “Giving till it hurts”.

— Father Dominic Emmanuel, a founder-member of Parliament of Religions, is currently the director of communication of the Delhi Catholic Church. He was awarded the National Communal Harmony Award 2008 by the Government of India. He can be contacted at frdominic@gmail.com