Left With 12 Kids - She Had Nothing But Gave Anyway (Fr Cristino)

When my great-grandmother was widowed and left with 12 children during the Great Depression, she had every reason to hold back. But instead… she gave. This is her powerful story of faith, sacrifice, and radical Catholic generosity — and how it challenges us today.

🔗 Support Fr. Cristino’s parish

In this conversation with Fr. Cristino, we explore:
🔹 What almsgiving really means for Catholics
🔹 How self-denial and giving are spiritually connected
🔹 Whether government programs have weakened Christian charity
🔹 How debt, inflation, and modern life affect our ability to give
🔹 And why sometimes, those who give receive more than they ever expected

This video isn’t just about the past — it’s about how we as Catholics are called to trust God, give boldly, and serve others, no matter our situation.

Transcript

Father Cristino welcome back thank you Ken really appreciate the time that you give to us so thank you very very much uh today we're going to talk about almsgiving i think uh sometimes you throw out the word almsgiving what is it if you ask ask the average Catholic I I wonder if they would know how to respond so let's respond to that what is almsgiving and also what is what is it not well I would say building off of a previous conversation that we had about self-denial almsgiving is is a is another kind of self-denial because it is the the freely uh generously giving away of of my resources uh not all of them obviously it's I don't think our lord would ask anyone to give away everything that they have just for the sake of charity obviously he asks us to to give up everything to follow him which means that we don't let anything hold us back from our disciplehip but almsgiving has a very specific and intentional focus which is to take from what I know I have and contribute it towards traditionally and specifically was understood to be the needs of the poor and that I think can be brought into understand more than even just the materially poor uh because I think in a way you could say giving is as important if not more important for thems

how come well the receiver is going to need it it's going to need more it never it never stops being needed no one ever stops needing money for example because you get money in order to spend it it's not it's not something that you eventually well you could say that you have now enough money that you don't need anymore but all that really means is you can't spend as much as you have but when you're relying upon alms you are absolutely going to spend all of what you get because you're just getting by right so the alms receiver is going to continuously be in a position of needing to have more the alm's giver in giving it away is always being reminded of that opportunity to deny oneself and also to see the the beauty of being able to contribute to building up someone else so I that's why I say I think the one who gives ends up receiving more than the one who receives the alms in the first place so traditionally it's been understood giving to the poor not necessarily the church well I think you could then that's why it's good to qualify what we mean by the poor in that anyone who has a need could be understood to be poor okay so the materially poor have the most blatantly obvious need but then when we look at the church how else does she function except off of the contributions of the faithful right uh in some cases and in some places in the world because of being wellestablished and institutions having the capacity to make investments and own property and real estate like the church in Canada wherever anywhere in Canada the church has money it's almost always because historically the church was the first institution to be there as the country was being established it amassed vast amounts of property and then eventually uh that property turned into something that was valuable that's largely why anywhere that has any substantial amount of money in Canada has the money that it has but for ongoing operation the church can only function because of the generosity of the faithful and that's why it is actually one of the precepts of the church that the faithful contribute towards the material needs of the church which normally translates into your local parish m but then of course it's helpful for us to see more broadly beyond just the parish and to see the local church the dascese maybe to say our parish is actually very comfortable we make all that we really need we're we're doing well so are there other parishes in the dascese that we know need help or are there other programs of social assistance where we see that if I were to contribute towards this I'm actually helping to multiply the reach of of my financial contribution because it's able to be put in multiple different directions mhm little side up here and I've always been thinking about this for a while and I want to know your opinion within Canada and also other many countries there's many social service programs for those who are in need and I'm wondering is if all these government uh programs if lack of a better word handouts to some really legitimate needs that we have in Canada have somehow hurt the charitable giving of Canadians because let's say we see a need or a person oh I I won't give it to them because there's a program that looks after that so I won't I won't give here or you see a person along the side of the street and I know it happens in our city and but you know what there's there's a place for them to stay where they can get food downtown so I won't give to them on the side so the question back does has government got in the way of giving charity and honest giving i'm sure to some extent you could argue that uh I think that as I was alluding to just a moment ago about some agencies are are able to kind of multiply the the way in which your your gift or your giving can go because it's organized in such a way that it that it's helping to bring up many people at once versus whoever the one random person is you happened upon uh I think another one of the the things that specifically addresses the the question of helping a person who is in need that you meet face to face is just simply the fact that people don't carry cash money anymore oh yeah uh there was a time that someone as they were known a panhandler got what they needed because at the end of the day if enough people walked by you and dropped some change into your hat uh you were you were able to go and purchase whatever food you might need that day but I think it's probably very realistic that nowadays a person could sit on the corner and panhandle and quite sincerely everyone who walks by them is not lying to say "Sorry I don't have anything." Right uh you know I'm I'm sometimes wondering if we're going to start seeing uh panhandlers are going to be able to let you tap your credit card if you want to help them somehow you know you just inspired an entrepreneur and they will get their 10% for and that that's where what you're asking about with regard to government kind of being in the way i don't know if if it's fair to say that that that government is in the way but it can give the impression sometimes is I think we can get the idea that it's someone else's responsibility mhm caring for the poor uh providing for the needy doing charitable works that there's someone else who's responsible for that and I'm just little old me and what what can I do all by myself yeah and that's I think the bigger problem is that because of having a very large social service structure we can easily think to ourselves that that's someone else's job and then we abdicate the responsibility that we do have as individuals to look for the needs of others and see how we can help alleviate those needs because there was a time in our country of Canada where there was no social structure at all like nets like there was no programs there was and not too long ago in the history of our people living here like I go back to the 1930s and I I wanted to bring this up but my my greatg grandmother uh grandma Larry she was widowed in 1931 my grand greatgrandfather died and left her with 12 children on the farm the oldest was 16 or 17 the oldest boy was 16 and there was I think three or four under the age of five so here's a woman who has just lost her husband she's on the farm they have they're poor they have they don't have much at all and I growing up I I was aware of some of the stories like my grandma later she lived in a box car next to our house actually where where I grew up there was a park but she she lived in a box car with three of her two other of her siblings uh in town at one point there's no insulation like it's cold in a train car that's where they lived but on the farm heard stories the train tracks would go by the farm and at that point in the 1930s a lot of men would ride the rail and they would see the farm they would jump off the train and it was often that my grandma Larry would find men in the barn and she always fed them so they didn't have anything like there was no social structure they were they were they what they ate is what they grew from and uh but she didn't turn people away and I remember stories hearing about Grandma Larry with all these children to provide for but feeding the men that jumped off the rail mhm there was another man his name is Joe Horse he was a native guy and he would walk miles in the area on crutches because he had a withered leg and he always came to my grandma Larry's farm for a meal he would walk miles for a meal and my grandma Larry always gave him a meal they actually couldn't speak to each other because she only knew French and he only knew English but he always got a meal from Grandma Larry my mom recently told me about another man who showed up in the area a World One veteran and uh was in need and they built him a shack on the land that they owned and they looked after him he didn't pay my mom in the 1950s remembers running meals out to a shock to him to feed him so I look at my grandma Larry like incredibly generous and uh and even to give you an idea of the need that she was in when her husband passed away so my great-grandpa dies she didn't have money for the casket so she went to the bank for a loan and they denied her the loan because she was a woman hm so she had to go back to the farm and sold a pig in order to have enough money to give her husband a proper proper Catholic Catholic burial so I think and I I knew Grandma Larry i was blessed uh she lived a long life and then she ended up living in our our hometown where I grew up with one of my uh great aunts so I remember little you know seeing her in a wheelchair talking to her and uh and when I hear of these stories now as an adult like an incredibly generous woman mhm um who just gave you know and I'm I'm really grateful and and sometimes I wonder again I go back to our government you know like we I just don't think we or just the the state of our society people don't live like that now no like they're going from meal to meal and then she's also giving meals away um anyways I I I share that as an story of inspire just to inspire our listeners and just and to encourage them in their generosity towards other people who are really in need yeah well I think that that's vitally important because what your grandmother your great-g grandandmother understood whether she would have been able to even articulate it or not was that what she had wasn't hers it it was everyone who needed it and that meant her children first and foremost but then if someone else showed up unexpectedly and they needed she put what she had at the service of of those now it's it's limited right if 25 men jumped off the train and came to the barn well obviously her generosity would have a limit yes but not actually her generosity had no limits her resources had a limit mhm and that's the difference is almsgiving is supposed to train us to have generosity without limits even though we are limited by what we have available to us we have things are finite by definition and so you will only have so much money to give away and you will only have so many potatoes that you can cook up and serve to the people that come off of the train tracks into your barn there's there's not an unlimited supply and so when we when we learn and train ourselves in that special kind of self-denial which says I am not going to hoard and keep to myself all of what I I do have i want to try and put at the service of others not just what I have left over but what I have and that's a very important distinction that alms giving calls forth from us am I only giving what I think is extra or am I saying this is all of what I have and I I make all of it available however it can be used that's the the spirit that your great-g grandandmother lived from out of and when one lives in that way they must be relying upon divine providence and when you're relying upon divine providence countless stories in the scriptures remind us that it is God who is going to provide for those needs and the as as the widow of Zarapath learned when Elijah came and asked for a loaf of bread from the last flower that she had the the jar of flour and the jug of oil did not run empty uh even though in theory she should have lost the little that she had left but because she put it at the service of Elijah God's prophet he sustained it and so in our almsgiving especially in the season of Lent when it is explicitly called forth from us we really do need to ask ourselves am I just trying to hive off what I think is extra that I probably don't need anyhow and say this is all that I have available to Or do we look at the whole and say "What can I do to try and make all of what I have available?" In the 1930s when Grandma Larry was being very generous that way the world was different they didn't have a tap right you didn't go tap and everything is paid for you didn't have credit uh I'm not sure of what mortgages were at that point i I'm I'm unfamiliar but you look at today's world and it's vastly different we talk about consumer debts and mortgages of like amortization of beyond 30 years and people continuously can't get ahead and then we have the struggle of inflation like I can tell you I'm not sure how it is in the United States where most of our listeners are but in Canada inflation is very noticeable in food and we know this as a family in our food bill like things have just got more and more expensive very quickly mhm and I'm like this is this is getting harder like it's expensive jug of milk like everything is going up and up and up and so then you look at almsgiving and what the church is inviting us to do um times are different now people are swimming in debt so can you speak to that what if a person feels like they're swimming in debt and debt can be uh stifling to a person just it's like this unspoken burden that we don't talk about i don't know if I've ever heard a homaly on financial debt but like it consumes basically it touches every family every family in some way typically has some type of debt if it's not consumer debt or hopefully people get out of that like to own a home incredibly expensive how does that now affect arms giving mhm that is a very important question and consideration that I think relates back to something that is so frequently overlooked and uh even just simply ignored in the church's social teaching which has to do with the condemnation of usery usery being the the loaning of money uh at a high interest rate so the whole concept of of compounding interest the church has taught is is evil uh and so there's the difference between calculating what you are losing by putting this amount of money at someone else's disposal over this amount of time and so you calculate an interest rate that accounts for the length of time that you are without this lump sum of money interest in and of itself is not wrong interest is a it's a it's just a cost it's a cost factored into the business of of needing to to hand out money but when you look at what happens with a credit card I just experienced this i have two credit cards one that I use for all my uh day-to-day purchases and one that would be only if I'm traveling or something like that and I discovered that there was some discrepancies with my one credit card and I've gotten into this argument with the credit card company and they are unrelenting and so I just decided I'm going to stop using it altogether i'm not going to cancel it i don't want it to wreck my my credit score whatever it would be called but I'm just not going to use it can sit there and collect dust as far as I'm concerned well I thought that I had paid off the last bill but I didn't realize that I had these pre-authorized payments that were still on it and so I missed one whole month of having paid that off so then when I realized that I went and paid it off but then this month I've gotten another bill for the interest that was charged on the missed payment from the month before and it just that's the first time in my life that I've ever let that happen because I'm careful to not spend more than I can afford so I pay off my credit card bill right away i thought to myself what must it be like to be put in a position where you can't afford to pay your bills so you need to use this credit card to keep your lights on and then next month you're just paying for the fact that you couldn't afford to pay for that in the first place that's how people can end up getting trapped in this cycle of debt because it's compounding at this exorbitant rate the fact that you already were in a financially disadvantaged situation now it gets worse if people start living beyond their means and consumerism takes over and so they just start racking up credit card debt on things that they shouldn't have because they can't afford them mhm i'm not commenting on that but the fact that this credit card that I already thought did me wrong has just continued to take money from me all in the name of this interest that is evil and trying to free ourselves up from participating in that is is is very important but when that becomes the way in which you associate with money that it's always just being taken from you at a rate that is unjust you're not going to think about giving away more of your money mhm it it completely cripples people from having the belief that they're even capable of almsgiving that they even have anything to give because what they think they do have is already being taken away from them and so it it completely inverts our instinct to put what we do have at the service of others so I think more than government getting in the way the big banking industry and money lending industry at these exorbitant interest rates that is totally destroying any concept that we have of trying to be generous

yeah sorry that happened to you good lesson for me to learn

so well uh I know that you have a a project and that you've been working on for some time that you took over and now that is it is yours that is uh an important one can you share that well sure i I actually this is all very much on the front of my mind because we just built a new church uh in the town where I serve in Strathmore Alberta and the community there had been without a church for 17 years the parish is over a 100 years old uh but the church that had previously been there it's a kind of a long history but tragically the the building was no longer able to be used and so for 17 years the people of that parish community were gathering for mass in a school gym on Sunday after Sunday mornings taking down chairs putting chairs away setting them back up after week after week it's so inspiring to know what the people there went through and all that time they were trying to save money to be able for us to to afford to build ourselves a new church and I was very blessed to be sent there at the beginning of of really getting that construction and renovation work underway and so we've opened the doors to our new church but now we're saddled with debt yeah and it's been very interesting for me to try and navigate this dynamic with people where you remind them of the importance of generosity and of almsgiving and of trying to contribute towards that while also knowing very well that many of my parishioners are just trying to keep the lights on in their home and and keep their families fed and that there isn't a lot extra to go around mhm uh but that's that's partly why we we rely upon generosity from whatever direction it will come from because we needed a home you you can't expect to to last forever as a community that has no home uh now we have that home uh and because of my concern around these exorbitant interest rates we want to see if we can get that debt paid down as fast as we can and so finding that balance between challenging people to remember to be generous while realizing that there's only so much that people can do resources are limited right so there doesn't necessarily have to be a limit to our generosity but when there's a limit on our resources we have to look around and see how we can rely upon the help of our neighbors as well and I have been there a few times already now when I go and interview you out out in your area and uh I have to say it's a beautiful church it's not one of these modern churches that you wonder and look at like what is that thing right it's identifiably Catholic and a traditional architecture it's beautiful and you would agree wouldn't you like it's absolutely Yeah like you It's I don't know who made those decisions what went in but they made some really good decisions because I've seen in my travels some complete disasters of new churches this is not one of them this is a beautiful church people are very blessed they're blessed to have you and we are blessed to have you on this channel so I'm going to go to you who've been following us for a long time if you've been blessed by Father Christino's presence on this channel um I would ask you to consider helping Father Christino and his parish in uh in with with a financial gift i I'll put a link in the description of this video um but I would really I've never done this before but uh I think it's important if you've been tuning in for a while and you've been blessed by his wisdom and you know Father you've taken time you of your busy schedule and I know what many people ask you to speak many different groups ask you to come on this podcast or this podcast or this media organization and and I know that you say no to almost everything but you've made yourself available to me and I'm really grateful for that and if you've been grateful for that please uh be generous with Father Cristino in his parish because uh they're in need so please consider that thank you thank you Ken you're welcome and with that share with us below what stood out to you and why and uh we'll end with a prayer [Music] oh my Jesus oh highest good I repent of having so lightly esteemed your grace that I have barted it away for mere nothing when will it be oh Lord that I shall see you face to face and shall embrace you without the fear of ever having to lose you aid me with your grace this I hope for through your merits more and more increase in me your love and the desire to please you amen

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