Monday of 34th Week, odd numbered year
“Truely I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than anyone.”
Jesus draws our attention to important people bringing up rich offerings. Two small coins fall into the trunk and Jesus sees only this poor elderly woman, hears only these two small coins dropping.
The teaching of God’s Word is so important for our life! ’This poor widow put in more than anyone’, declares Jesus, who has a different way of seeing things than we do. We evaluate what we give according to what it cost us, what we had to give up. Our gift says what our value is, our qualities, our generosity as we see it ourselves. Jesus doesn’t speak about what we give but about what we keep. This is the difference between this elderly woman and the wealthy who put their offering in the trunk : she kept nothing.
’Saint Thérèse said ’To love is to give everything.’
We need to be very attentive and to be receptive to what Jesus is telling us so as to be particularly available for God’s work. We adjust our walk in faith and prudence, taking into account the human and divine part of our being, and also what comes from faith and what comes from prudence.
“Jesus also noticed a poverty-stricken widow putting in two small coins, and he said, ’I tell you truely, this poor widow has put in more than any of them.”
It is only when we have encountered God in his Providence that we can give everything in our life.
We prepare our hearts to encounter God, to discover the source of all Love, which delivers itself up for us without expecting anything back and without holding onto anything for oneself. Jesus must reign in our life as in the life of this little elderly lady who drops in two small coins into the trunk, all of her wealth. Jesus tells us she gave much more than others and this has us reflect upon the place of God in our lives. Are we calculating, giving what is superfluous in us that says something about the gift of God for us, about the way we put it to work.
For sure, it is right to be prudent, but we can place ourselves in the centre of the situation and not in an attitude of faith.
Jesus tells us : ’Be candid like doves and prudent as snakes.’
If human nature has laws which we respect, we participate also in divine life which has its ow markings. There are not any contradictions in this, but there are some paradoxes. Faith and grace need to carry everything, which is not always easy for us.
“For all these have put in money they could spare, but she in her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”
Saint Ambrose comments :’The Lord teaches, as is fitting, that we should be merciful and generous towards the poor, without stopping at the thought of his poverty ;for generosity cannot be calculated according to the abundance of the patrimony, but according to the disposition to give. This is why the Lord prefers this widow to all the others and he says ’This widow has given more than the others.’
A small coin taken out of few goods brings us to an inestimable treasure! We don’t calculate what is given but what remains, no one has given more than the one who kept nothing for herself.
We are absolutely certain that God cannot let us go.
Mary is the poor widow who gave everything at the Cross, everything she had to live. In Mary we have an astonishing example.
The apostle will take up this Word: The Father, giving His Son to us, has given everything to us, He has given everything in giving us HIs Son Jesus. When Jesus gives us his Body and Blood and when he gives us Mary, has given everything. He invites us to give Him everything so as to be happy.