“Offered Her Whole Livelihood”
by Rev. Paul Berghout (@FatherPB)
Piety
When Jesus 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." (Luke 21:1-4)
Study
Yesterday, on the
Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, our theme for the
last week of the Liturgical Year was set forth.
It doesn’t matter if
Christ is King of the Universe unless he rules in our hearts and reigns in our
lives. Without our piety, study, and action, what do galaxies matter? Recognizing Christ the King and saying
“yes” to Christ is saying “Amen” to all that is. That’s why God created us. That’s
why we are here. As we say in the Cursillo Commissioning, “Christ is counting
on you.” Our reply is always, “I am counting on Christ.”
Today, Jesus gives us
the example of the poor widow who does not even put her two small coins ahead
of the needs of others. She, like the Good Theif on the cross in yesterday's Gospel, recognized better than most others, what putting Christ
first means. The mighty widow’s mite!
A meditation for this
week:
A writer arrived at
the monastery to write a book about the Master.
"People say you
are a genius. Are you?" he asked.
"You might say
so," said the Master, none too modestly.
"And what makes
one a genius?"
"The ability to
recognize."
"Recognize
what?"
"The butterfly
in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human
being."
Like the Good Thief.
The penitent criminal, who became a Saint. He could talk to Jesus heart-to-heart on the Cross, or as the popular Catholic motto goes, “heart speaks to
heart” (Cor ad cor loquitur).
He called him simply
by the name “Jesus.” Everywhere else in the Bible, people address Jesus with a
reverential title (e.g., “Lord,” “Master,” “Teacher”), or they modify it like
“Jesus of Nazareth,” “Jesus, Master,” “Jesus, Son of David.”
But the Good Thief calls
him “Jesus.” This casual and familiar address is the only time this happens in
the entire Bible to teach us that the more helpless and marginalized you feel,
the more you need to cry out in simple faith to Jesus.
Mary taught us even
to personalize it at Fatima: “O my Jesus,” which begins the Rosary decade
prayer after the Glory Be.
Action
Don’t let the devil
shut you up.
Don’t let others shut
you up, like the rulers, the soldiers, and the non-repentant criminal. With
anger and sarcasm, they all say, “you don’t deserve to speak to Jesus heart to
heart.” But mockery will never end on a good note.
The Good Thief did as
Richard Rolle, a mystic of fourteenth-century England taught: If you think the
name "Jesus" continually, and hold it firmly, it purges your sin, and
kindles your heart; it clarifies your soul, it removes anger and does away
slowness. It wounds in love and fulfills
charity. It chases the devil and puts out dread. It opens heaven and makes a
contemplative man. Have Jesus in mind, for that puts all vices and phantoms out
from the lover.
“It opens heaven”
Jesus will speak to
your heart, saying, “Amen, I say to you...” (This expression also is the only
place in the Gospels where the pronoun “you” is used with “Amen.”)
Amen means “it is so”
or “so it be.” So, Jesus spoke to the
Good criminal’s heart, saying, “It is so, that you, “today you will be with me
in Paradise.”
Paradise has
returned, and it consists of eternal life in and through Jesus.
We may need to close
our eyes from time to time to re-establish our attention and awareness on this
heart to heart speaking with Jesus.
For example, Pope
Benedict XVI taught that “God does not look at the words but at the heart of
the person praying” (Diadema monachorum [Diadem of the monks], and he also
quoted The Little Prince:
“And now here is my
secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see
rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
The Little Prince
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