A CALL TO GENEROSITY

by Dennis J. Gerber, Jr
President, Knights of Columbus Charitable Fund

When I was eight years old, I learned in Sunday school that Christians are called to give alms to the poor. I did not yet grasp the theology of charity, but I took the command seriously. After class I went home, grabbed a plastic sandwich bag from the kitchen drawer, and set off down my neighborhood street asking strangers for “alms for the poor.”

I told each person that I was collecting for our parish priest so he could give the money to those in need. By the time I got back, I had raised about eight dollars and attracted the attention of the local police. Someone had called, concerned about a little boy wandering door to door asking for money. My father was horrified. I had to give the donations back, but no one wanted their money returned. In the end, I walked up to our priest and handed him that bag of crumpled bills and coins. For a child, it felt like a small miracle, a simple act of love that the world did not quite know how to handle.

POPE LEO AND OUR SHARED POVERTY

Decades later, I lead the Knights of Columbus Charitable Fund (KCCF), one of the fastest growing donor-advised fund sponsors in the United States. Over the past five years, our donors have given more than a quarter billion dollars to Catholic parishes, schools, apostolates, and secular organizations. The transactions may be digital now instead of sandwich bags stuffed with dollar bills, but the essence is the same: human hearts moved by generosity.

That same spirit animates Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi te (“I have loved you.”) The document is about love for the poor, but it is also about the poverty within each of us. Pope Leo writes that material deprivation is only one face of poverty. There are other, subtler forms: spiritual poverty, when we live without prayer or gratitude; relational poverty, when we are surrounded by people but starved for communion; and moral poverty, when conscience is dulled and goodness is mocked.

He notes that in modern societies many possess everything except the joy of being loved. It is an echo of Pope Francis’s words in Evangelii Gaudium: “We must never forget that the worst discrimination which the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care.”

In that sense, Dilexi te is not only about “them,” the poor out there, but about us. We are all poor in one way or another. Our wealth and efficiency can mask a deeper emptiness, the poverty of indifference.

THE CURE OF ALMSGIVING

That is where almsgiving comes in.

Pope Leo devotes a moving section to this ancient practice, reminding us that “almsgiving, however modest, brings a touch of pietas into a society otherwise marked by the frenetic pursuit of personal gain.” He quotes Scripture and the Church Fathers not as nostalgia but as realism. Almsgiving may not solve systemic poverty, but it rescues the giver from a harder fate, the closed heart.

“Whatever form it may take,” he writes, “almsgiving will touch and soften our hardened hearts.”

That line resonates deeply with me. Every day at KCCF, I see families experience what I once felt as a child, the joy of giving freely. Some of our donors grant $25, others millions, but in each case, generosity becomes a small conversion. It loosens the grip of fear. It reorders our priorities. It teaches us that abundance is meant for communion, not accumulation.

In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis calls the Church to be “a Church for the poor and of the poor.” He means not just institutional outreach but a renewal of our own hearts. When we give time, money, or attention, we participate in that renewal. We rediscover what it means to belong to one another.

Almsgiving, then, is not a sentimental gesture. It is a discipline of freedom. It breaks the spell of self-absorption and teaches us again how to see. In giving, we remember that what we possess is temporary, but what we share becomes eternal.

THE PARADOX OF GIVING

Our modern age, for all its progress, is marked by a strange dual poverty. We have more than ever yet trust less than ever. We are connected by technology but isolated in spirit. Acts of generosity, whether a billion dollar foundation or a boy with a sandwich bag, become small acts of rebellion against that isolation. They remind us that human dignity is not measured by output or income but by the capacity to love.

When I look back on that childhood misadventure, I realize that I was poor in understanding but rich in intent. Today, through the work I am privileged to lead, I see how God continues to use simple acts of generosity to build His kingdom. Each gift, whether of wealth or compassion, is an echo of Christ’s own words: Dilexi te — “I have loved you.”

In the end, almsgiving is not about what we give away; it is about what we receive in return. It is the strange arithmetic of grace: The more we give, the richer we become.

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