‘Give Away Jesus’: Archbishop Golka Challenges Summer Missionaries

Celebrating Mass for Annunciation Heights, Totus Tuus and Camp Wojtyla missionaries, the archbishop encouraged faith-filled generosity and service.

Mere days after Pentecost, the day on which God gave his people the greatest gift of all — the Holy Spirit — Denver Archbishop James Golka challenged young adult summer missionaries to live that radical generosity throughout their service.

Celebrating Mass during the weeklong training for Annunciation Heights, Totus Tuus and Camp Wojtyla missionaries, all of whom will serve, form and catechize young people this summer across the archdiocese, the archbishop reflected on the gift of the Holy Spirit and his role in the Christian life, especially in our generous gift-giving.

“At Pentecost, the Father gave us his breath, his Holy Spirit, to animate us and make us something we could not be before,” he said. “So I would invite you and challenge you to ask the Father to let the gifts of the Father work through you freely in everything you’re going to do. It’ll be Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit touching people if you let them work through you.”

To illustrate the point, the archbishop recounted the story of The Last Magi by Henry Van Dyke. In the story, a poor husband and wife look to buy gifts for each other on their first Christmas as a married couple. The husband sells his prized pocket watch to give his wife an ornate hairbrush for her beloved and beautiful hair, and the wife sells her hair to purchase a fob for her husband’s watch.

“Now, what they did in the business world is a colossal waste of resources, a colossal waste of product. They did not achieve anything,” he said. “But in the language of love, in God’s way of doing things — God, who is a gift-giver — that was golden love. Their first Christmas was filled with more love than you can imagine, because they were acting like God, who gave away everything. And when you give away everything, you have more than you started with.”

Building on his reflection on God’s economy, which makes little sense to the world, Archbishop Golka recalled an experience from his own time as a missionary with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Invited to a birthday “giveaway,” he dutifully showed up with a present, only to be told to put it back in his car.

“No, this is a birthday giveaway,” the birthday boy’s mother told him. “That means you put that present back in the car because my son is going to give away a gift to you. That’s what we do here.”

As the party went on, the archbishop said he was struck by the young man’s generosity on a day when most are celebrated and showered with presents and praise. After watching him for a while, the boy’s grandmother approached the archbishop to explain.

“We do this on occasions because when you give, you get to feel like God, because God is the great gift-giver and God will never be outdone in the generosity of giving,” she explained. “We give because none of this belongs to us. Everything is a gift of God.”

The grandmother went on to explain that, according to Lakota Sioux tradition, gifts were to be handed on “when it’s the right time, place and person,” until the gift had been given eight times.

The tradition came to fruition when, at the end of his time on the reservation and before he left for seminary, Archbishop Golka was given a star quilt, “the best they have.” The tribe had given the quilt seven times before so that he would be able to keep it as he followed God’s call. And keep it he did, for eight years, when his sister-in-law needed the gift more than he.

“I felt joyful. I felt like Jesus, because I got to give away something that wasn’t mine,” the archbishop reflected. “So, please go out this summer and give away the Holy Spirit and give away Jesus because they’re not yours.”