by Fr. Tommy Lane
Last Sunday Jesus summarized the commandments as loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:28-31). The widow in the first reading is an example of loving neighbor as herself as she fed Elijah (1 Kings 17:10-16), and the widow in the Gospel is an example of loving God (Mark 12:38-44). We see this sort of thing sometimes in the Gospels: Jesus gives a teaching and elsewhere we see people living out the teaching of Jesus (Luke 10:25-42). That is also why it is good to get to know the saints: they help us to understand Jesus and the Church.
During a famine caused by severe drought, Elijah the prophet went north to Zarephath, and the widow generously shared with Elijah the last food she had for herself and her son. Elijah was a very powerful prophet and strong preacher, but also performed many extraordinary miracles. We see one of them in the first reading today: at his word, the widow’s food jars did not empty so she was able to continuously bake bread during the famine. If you read beyond today’s first reading you see that the widow was rewarded for her kindness to Elijah: sometime after this, her son became seriously ill and died, and Elijah performed another miracle, raising her son to life again (1 Kings 17:17-24). The widow loved her neighbor Elijah as herself and God did not forget her kindness.
The widow in the Gospel displayed enormous trust in God as she gave her donation in the temple treasury. The treasury was simply the area under a colonnade with thirteen collection boxes where people could put their donations for the temple expenses. Jesus praised the widow to his disciples because of the amount of sacrifice her giving involved for her. She is a contrast to the scribes in today’s Gospel who are castigated by Jesus for engaging in elder abuse—taking financial advantage of widows (Mark 12:40).
I like this widow for a number of reasons, one being the trust in God that she displayed. As a widow, in a society with no social security, she was completely dependent on her nearest male relative. (Luke tells us about another widow, the widow in Nain whose son Jesus raised to life. It is heart moving because she was totally dependent financially on her only son and he had just died. Had Jesus not come Nain that day and restored him to her, financially she would have been finished, apart from having lost her husband and only son.) The widow in today’s Gospel had only two small coins, each worth only 1/128th of a day’s wage. We might wonder why she did not keep one coin for herself or even both, but Jesus praised her. Mark tells us that Jesus praised her because she gave everything whereas the others gave from their surplus, but when we go behind that I think what we see is her trust in God and surrender to God. That is why I like her: she displayed enormous trust in God. A few days ago, someone emailed me this beautiful prayer:
Jesus, I surrender my
life to you.
You take care of everything.
Give me the grace to
surrender my life to you.
I think the widow was living that prayer, and she was already living what St. Paul wrote later to the Philippians: “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:6-7)
I also like the widow in the Gospel because of her enormous inner strength in the face of the apparent shallowness of those around her. She was a nobody in comparison with the scribes, but she behaved like someone with a mature faith in God, a faith so mature that she earned Jesus’ praise. She had an inner strength that the scribes did not have:
She had her heart in order; they relied on externals because their hearts were not in order.
She did not need the acknowledgment of others because God was her foundation; they needed the acknowledgment of others because they were suffering from insecurity.
She placed God first; they placed themselves first (me, me, me).
She comes across as someone very humble; they come across as proud.
So, I would say: she was powerful; they were weak.
I also like her because from one point of view what she gave was tiny, but it had enormous spiritual value in the eyes of Jesus. When we do something small to help others, or say an encouraging word, or smile to someone, while we might not know it, it could mean so much more than we can imagine for the one we helped. It happens sometimes, sometimes years afterwards, that someone tells us how much we helped them during a crisis.
Last Sunday Jesus summarized the commandments as loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. The widow in the first reading is an example of loving neighbor as herself as she fed Elijah, and the widow in the Gospel is an example of loving God.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2024
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the Thirty-Second Sunday of Year B
What motivates you? God’s love for you or your love of yourself? 2009
Related Homilies: We do not need false appearances because we are citizens of heaven
First Reading Give to Jesus and he gives to us