“Amen,
I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to
the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she,
from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood." (Mark
12:43-44)
We
are presented with two very generous widows in today’s readings who give from
what they do not have. They are giving
from a place of love because even in their poverty they see the need to help
others. We must remember, as is pointed
out when Jesus raised the son of the widow of Naim, that widows in Jesus’ time
were particularly vulnerable to poverty because they did not have someone to provide
for them. We constantly hear references
in the Scriptures of the Lord favoring the “widow and the orphan” because they
were the forgotten, the littlest among the people. In the first reading, a widow who had only
enough to feed herself and her son was resigned to starving to death after she
had prepared their last meal during a great famine. Yet this widow puts her trust in Elijah the
prophet who promises that her jars of flour and oil would not go empty during
the famine. She gives the prophet
something to eat even if it meant that she and her son would possibly go
without eating. She gave from what she
did not have.
In
the gospel, Jesus observes another widow giving “from her poverty.” She also was giving from what she did not
have. Jesus points her out to the
disciples after expressing his disappointment with the scribes for “devouring
the houses of widows”. They gave from
their surplus while the poor widow gave from what she did not have.
Both
these widows show us how to love when we have nothing to give. So often we are called to perform acts of
love when we literally have nothing to offer.
I think of parents who get home tired after a long day at work, and they
still find the energy to spend time with their children, cook them dinner, help
them with their homework, play with them, bathe them and tuck them in. And this is what Pope Francis asked parents
to do a couple of weeks ago when he told parent to “waste time with your
children.” That may not sound very
productive, but parenthood is not about productivity, it’s about love. I think of my sister who works tirelessly
every day and I’ve seen her come and pick up my nephews at my parent’s house
and think: “she and my brother in law have another five hours of parenting
before they put them to bed.” Parents
may be running on empty when they get home, but this is where the Lord works
through them because they are sharing their love from a place of nothingness
and vulnerability just like the widows.
Yesterday, I was reading the commentary of Bishop Robert Barron on these
readings and he said, “God reveals himself precisely at that moment of
our greatest vulnerability and need.” He comes to our aid when we feel like we
can’t go any further. It’s not just
parents. It’s all of us. We are all called to love and to give of
ourselves as Christians, and sometimes we are called to share this love in
moments of great pain, suffering, stress, anxiety, exhaustion, etc. And this is where we need to trust God to
take over for us. We may be running on
empty and things may seem impossible, but we need to stop concentrating on the
impossible and focus on what is possible for that is when the impossible
becomes possible.
A small gesture of love, like the widow in the gospel, is
enough to get the attention of Jesus.
Sometimes in our weariness and out of our nothingness the Lord can work
marvels through us if we let him. We
have to trust him. Even though her life
was in peril, the widow in the first reading trusted God. Even though she didn’t have a dime left, the
widow in the gospel trusted God. When we
are running on empty and have literally nothing to left to give, do we trust
God enough to take over?
