32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Sunday 8th November 2015)
Let us surrender completely to God’s Divine Providence – (Mark 12:38-44)
In Jesus’ lesson regarding the Widow in the Temple Treasury, it is easy to miss just how radical the lesson is. The widow in the Gospel did not just give what she had to spare. We are told, rather, that she gave “everything she possessed, all that she had to live on”. What utter reliance this poor woman had in God’s Providence! What would she live on tomorrow if, today, she gives everything away? She utterly believes that God will provide!
Widows, in ancient times, did not have a right to their deceased husbands’ property and, so, while marriage represents prosperity and companionship, widowhood typically represents affliction and desolation. Widows, without property, would find it hard to have anything at all (an animal or some money) with which to make a sacrifice and take part of the liturgical life of the temple. The widow in the story, though she is barely surviving, longs to be part of the liturgical life of her community, to support the temple and pay her dues to God. As Christians we too must always be mindful of the relationship between good liturgy and care for the poor. Liturgy and social justice go hand in hand. Our first service is to God – offering up praise and worship to him – this, then, in turn, spurs us on to serve those who are vulnerable, sick, poor or destitute. We do not stop at helping the poor materially. What the poor ultimately long for, after their basic needs are met, is communal worship; to belong in the house of God.
In bringing to the attention of his disciples the widow’s total offering, Jesus prepares them to understand his total self-offering on the cross. He would pour out on Calvary all that he has – his body, blood, soul and divinity – a total self-offering to his Father, bringing humanity into a right relationship with God with his supreme act of obedience, homage and thanksgiving. This theme of “excess-giving” is constant with Jesus. At the wedding feast of Cana, Jesus instructs the stewards to fill the stone jars to the brim, so that the wine that he would produce would be the “best of wine” and it would be overflowing. Similarly, in the multiplication of the loaves for the hungry masses there were twelve baskets left over after the meal. Jesus’ generosity does not have limits. After he ascended to heaven, he poured the Holy Spirit into the hearts of all those whom he left behind, so that they would not only not miss him, but feel his presence closer than ever. The Eucharist, the supreme gift of the Holy Spirit, makes him closer than ever to us. It also makes us partakers of Jesus’ sacrificial act of atoning for our sins and the sins of the whole world. Through partaking of the Eucharist, following the example of the widow, and following the path of Jesus, we offer up all that we possess, all that we have to live on, so that we may surrender to God’s care for us, to his Divine Providence.
Fr. Eamon Roche