I love the warning to not do your alms in public...that covers so many areas. You don't have to be giving money ostentatiously to do your alms in public.
Like bragging on yourself can be doing your alms in public. It's not bragging on yourself to know that you can be depended on, or to know that you are a good and loving person. It is bragging if you go around telling people you can be depended on, and then not being available when someone asks for help, and you've got an unimportant but fun thing you'd rather do, so you pass on helping. Or you say you're a good and loving person except when Gertrude, who is just disgusting, or Mortimer, who is a butt, come around. On the other hand, that's not so much bragging as bald-faced lying to yourself.
But back to not doing your alms in public doesn't have to be about money. To me, saying a silent thank You is a good way to pray without ceasing, just not publicly...to praise God without spotlighting you praising God. The more you can do for others without a goal in mind, other than to be of help to another, the less needy you become.
I guess the goal is to become anonymous to yourself...to your wants. For the Father knows your needs. Your wants, then, are ego driven and can never honestly be about others.
Thank You.
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