Catholic Tithing and Giving

The word 'tithe' originally meant 'ten per cent', which was the biblical norm for giving (in the Old Testament).  I never really thought about tithing... it was never really taught to me, although generosity, almsgiving and volunteerism was nothing strange in my home and to my family.

However, in the past year, thoughts of tithing kept coming to my mind.  And opportunities to give kept coming.  I remember sitting in church during one Mass with my normal offering in hand.  Suddenly it came to me that my monthly total wasn't even 5% of my monthly income.  Surely that was not right.  I just knew that it wasn't enough.  So I began giving more.

Then a young girl who needed help crossed my path.  I helped her find a place to stay, to study... and unbelievably, without meaning to, I found her sponsors.  I was just sitting in my room, chatting with a friend.  Then I mentioned her case.  The next thing I knew, he dialed a number and passed me his phone to talk to a total stranger.  These Christians (non-Catholics) were practising tithing.  But they didn't give to a particular church.  They just helped those who needed monetary help.  Needless to say, that young lady is now able to concentrate on her studies and no longer needs to look for part-time jobs.  She was suspicious of the help at first but I explained that these men NEEDED to give money back for they had been so blessed by God.

Knowing about these two men's practice made me read up on tithing.

The clincher came last month.  I had an orphanage page on my Facebook but I hadn't been paying them much attention.  Suddenly I just kept coming across references to the orphanage.  At night, I kept thinking of them.  And believe it or not, the sentence 'Give them money.' kept resounding in my brain.  It was an order.  GIVE THEM MONEY.  I lasted about three days and nights.  On the third night, I sat at my computer and thought, OK I give up.  So let's give them money.  I tried to do an online transfer of RM200.  Unsuccessful.  I tried again.  Still unsuccessful.  That was Friday night.

On Saturday morning, I went to a friend's house.  Sat down and unloaded everything to her.  She smiled and then shared HER own stories about tithing.  She too went through almost the same process of getting the idea and then experiencing impulses to give.  The amazing bit of her story came when she felt the urge to give RM500 to a stranger.  But then she only had RM200 left of her ten percent tithe.  However the urge was so strong that she just gave him the RM500.  The very next day, a friend came to her house and handed her an envelope, saying,"X, I don't know why but God wants me to give you this."  Guess how much money was in the envelope?  RM300.

The more she shared with me, the stronger the urge to give that money to the orphanage became.  This time it was 'GIVE THEM RMX00!'.  More than the original RM200!  But by that time, I was just too frazzled to care.  She laughed as I jumped up and ran to my car.  I drove to KK to find an Alliance Bank branch.  The closest was in front of the Filipino market.  At 11am on a Saturday morning, that place is usually FULL of people.  So I began thinking of where I could park my car.  And I also began thinking of what my options were if I couldn't find parking.  Would you believe that there was an empty parking spot just three shops away from the bank?  Right in between two vans.  When I saw that empty spot,  I became all the more anxious to dump that money in the cash deposit ATM.  I didn't want any more unsettled nights or nagging feelings.  Never have I ever been so relieved to see money disappear from my wallet.

But why RMX00?  I puzzled over that for a while. Then I realised... OF COURSE.  RMX00 was my tithe for the month.

Some people may probably think I'm crazy.  That's okay, I wonder about it sometimes too.