The Clown of God
The Clown of God is an old story (either Italian or French, depending on your source). It centers on an orphaned child who goes begging from door to door, juggling for his food. He eventually joins a traveling troupe of entertainers, and gains fame and fortune as a juggler, until he grows old, and with his skills diminishing, again becomes a homeless beggar.
One Christmas Eve, he seeks shelter in a nearby church, and falls asleep on a pew in the rear of the church. He awakens to find the church filled with townspeople offering their gifts during Midnight Mass. After the congregation had departed he approaches the creche` and offers the only thing he has left: his gift of juggling.
He puts on his clown face, and juggles as he never had before. He dies, giving everything he has in his attempt.
The message of the story is that it is not what we can offer the Lord, but the spirit in which we offer it, that really matters.
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