King Bryan, I wonder how many people know who King Bryan is? He is the king of the leprechauns. I happen to know that because I recently watched an old favorite Disney movie called “Darby O’Gill And The Little People”. One fine day while chasing a rainbow, Darby O’Gill came upon King Bryan and captured him. As the story goes, if you capture a leprechaun, then he has to grant three wishes. Well the shenanigans between King Bryan and Darby O’Gill in this old tale were very amusing, to say the least. There was a moral to the story of the love of a grandfather for his grandchild and Darby’s willingness to sacrifice his own life to save his granddaughter.
In the month of St. Patrick many people claim to be Irish as they wear green top hats, walk with shillelaghs and last but not least, drink green beer!
The reality is, that there is another kind of green in the world…The green of envy, which is not self-sacrificing, as in the aforementioned story, but rather, more self-giving or filled with self-motivation. That would be the green-eyed-monster of jealousy.
This is when one wants what others have, in particular when pride raises its ugly head. It can destroy friendships, work relationships and even family relationships. It happens when someone looks on a situation and doesn’t understand the depths of it.
When someone is given the gift of compassion from above, they are sometimes compelled to give care and assistance to a person in need. This is a very good thing and something heaven is proud of. Add to that someone looking on who does not understand why the giver, has not done something similar for them and you have a jealous feeling growing in the onlooker. It is often probable that the onlooker has much more than the person in need, but that matters little. Jealousy is not a heavenly thing and does not stop to consider this fact. It starts to cause resentment, gossip and a need for revenge. Does God approve of such motives?
The next often tried, logical, step for the onlooker is to surround themselves with people who will support them in their perceived injustice. Thus they begin to gossip and tell all manner of tales about the needy person, in order to persuade their supporters that they have been treated unfairly. This can sometimes make the giver feel that perhaps they should not have been generous in the first place. In other extreme cases the jealous person, the one with the green-eyed-monster sitting on his shoulder, will try to get what the needy person has obtained by any means available.
What must the Heavenly Father think of this? God was the one who prompted the giver to be generous in the first place and that was a very good thing not only for the needy person, but also for the giver. Many of us believe that good deeds in this world go before us and are saved for us in heaven. Prayer can eliminate the need to feel jealous. If we ask our Heavenly Father to make us generous of heart ourselves and not fall into the temptation to destroy or reverse the good act, He will surly help us to replace the jealousy with good thoughts and even a generous spirit of our own.
Prayer: Jesus, you were meek and humble of heart. You are the most generous of all and came here and sacrificed your life in order to share heaven with us. Please take the promptings of the evil one away and replace it with the goodness that is like yours in wishing our brothers and sisters only the VERY BEST in their lives. Amen.
Marilyn LaPierre