John D. Rockefeller, Sr., was a millionaire at age 23. At the age of fifty, he was a billionaire. He was the richest man in the world, but he was a miserable, rich man.
At the age of 53, he was eaten up with physical diseases and ulcers. He was a grabber, not a giver. He was always trying to get more money and he was a greedy man. Greed had so consumed him, that at the age of 53, the doctors told him he had one year to live.
Just one year. Here’s a billionaire, the richest man in the world, and all he could eat that year, all that his stomach could handle was milk and crackers. Milk and crackers. The man could go out and buy any restaurant in the world, buy it; he could have any food before him on the table, but it wouldn’t do him much good.
It was in that year, that Rockefeller began to look at his life. He said, “I have all these possessions, and I’ve never been a giver.” That’s when he decided to become a giver. He gave to Churches, to hospitals, to foundations, and to medical research. Many of the discoveries we’ve had in medicine have come from money provided by the Rockefeller Foundation.
That man who had only one year to live at age 53, began to live, and began to give, and do you know what happened to him? He started releasing all of the internal negative things that were killing him. He got rid of his stress, his tension, and his ulcers, and he lived to the age of ninety, a saint to many.
-Submitted by Fr. Joseph Dovari