She has offered her whole livelihood

26 NOVEMBER (Lk 21,1-4)

Widows were poor people. They were helped, sustained, defended, supported. Instead the Pharisees devoured their homes, taking advantage of their weakness, loneliness, frailty. How strange religion is when one uses it for the worship of his own person. In a religion there are always the profiteers, the dishonest, cheaters, hypocrites, troublemakers, the factious, the revolutionaries, the impure of mind and thought, counterfeiters of truth, traitors of Justice, the manipulators of conscience. Religion is a real net cast into the sea of the world that takes any kind of fish. To every man the ultimate responsibility for discernment in the Holy Spirit, so that his conscience lives only for the purest and holiest truth of God and man.

Elijah had asked for food to a widow, but he guaranteed her the food in a time of tremendous famine well for three years and six months. He let himself be helped by the poorest in the region, but to help her cope with the tremendous shortage that enveloped the country. The true sent of God has never exploited either the poor and or the rich. On the contrary, he gave to the poor and the rich. He is rich with God, and This is enough for him.

Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab: “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, during these years there shall be no dew or rain except at my word.” The Lord then said to Elijah: “Leave here, go east and hide in the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan. You shall drink of the stream, and I have commanded ravens to feed you there.” So he left and did as the Lord had commanded. He went and remained by the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan. Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the stream. After some time, however, the brook ran dry, because no rain had fallen in the land. So the Lord said to him: “Move on to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have designated a widow there to provide for you.” He left and went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the entrance of the city, a widow was gathering sticks there; he called out to her, “Please bring me a small cupful of water to drink.” She left to get it, and he called out after her, “Please bring along a bit of bread.” “As the Lord, your God, lives,” she answered, “I have nothing baked; there is only a handful of flour in my jar and a little oil in my jug. Just now I was collecting a couple of sticks, to go in and prepare something for myself and my son; when we have eaten it, we shall die.” “Do not be afraid,” Elijah said to her. “Go and do as you propose. But first make me a little cake and bring it to me. Then you can prepare something for yourself and your son. For the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the Lord sends rain upon the earth.'” She left and did as Elijah had said. She was able to eat for a year, and he and her son as well; The jar of flour did not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, as the Lord had foretold through Elijah. (1Kings 17,1-16).

Today, Jesus is in the temple of Jerusalem. Many rich come here and throw their offerings into the treasure. A widow comes and throws two coins, apparently nothing, into it.

When he looked up he saw some wealthy people putting their offerings into the treasury and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins. He said, “I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest; for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.”

The nothing for man is the all to the Lord. This woman gave to her God all she had to live. The rich instead not even their unnecessary. They gave what cost them really nothing. It is not the quantity that makes us pleasing to the Lord, but the heart. These rich people have no heart for the Lord. They do not deprive themselves of anything. They make no sacrifices. They do not even have to stake their faith in the divine Providence. This widow instead puts herself in question. She tries herself in her faith. She abandons herself entirely to her God. She is free to love without calculations. She knows that God’s blessing would have covered, protected, nourished and saved her. Jesus praises this woman because he sees himself in her. He also must give the Lord all that he has to live. His whole body, his blood, his whole life, from the temple of his being.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us an offer pleasing to God.