Although I’m certainly no Ann Landers, I can offer you pastoral guidance via the Church’s teachings.
Because of a general lack of faith, it might seem that money given in charity is sometimes almost thrown away or lost. Yet this is the very “test” of commitment which St. Paul speaks of in his second epistle to the Corinthians (9:6-15).
Like all acts of charity, donations should be given freely, but with great care and reverence. They should be thought through with a full understanding of the circumstances and offered in a desire to please God. Money should never be given grudgingly, but with cheerfulness because, as the saying goes, “God loves a cheerful giver” (2nd Cor. 9:7).
How and what we give correlates to how we view and respect the Gospel. Charity becomes a measure to our thankfulness and depicts, at least in a physical sense, the love we have for God; manifested by the ability to give of our treasure to a greater Treasure.
In so doing, God will always allow His grace to abound in us. It will multiply and increase in direct proportion to how well we divest ourselves of greed and want. Then, God will not only cause us to have enough in all things, but to also be content with what we do have. All we have to do is trust in God and show the reality of our subjection to the gospel which calls us to be charitable.
