In our First Reading, Elijah met a poor widow. He wanted some water from the widow who was gathering sticks. She went to fetch it for him. Then he asked for some bread. But there was nothing. She was left only with a handful of flour and a few drops of oil. She was about to prepare a final meal for her and her son before dying. “Do not fear,” the prophet said. “Do as you were planning, but give me some as well. You will not run out.” The three of them were able to eat for a year: the prophet, the woman, the child. The flour did not vanish. The oil did not go dry.
There are times when we are down, and we think we have nothing left to give. Little remains in the barrel of our lives. Then, for some reason, we still manage to give more out of the nothing we have left. Then we realised that it is the Grace of God working.
In our Gospel Reading today, our Lord watches a poor widow pull out two small coins and drop them in the temple treasury. We are told that many rich people had given much larger sums, but it was this widow that caught the Lord’s eye and moved his heart.
It tells us that Jesus has an unconventional way of appraising gifts. Unlike most of us and the rest of the world, our Lord does not pay too much attention to the material value of gifts. We are too easily focused on price tags – $10 versus $9.99, thanks to our consumerist culture and the compulsive acquisitiveness that it often breeds in us. Just as we tend to define ourselves by what we possess; what we wear; what we put on our faces, likewise we tend to value people by the price of the gifts we receive from them.
Not so the Lord. Unimpressed by the rich donors who gave so much more than the widow, our Lord kept his eye on the HEART of the giver. Whereas the others offered what was spare change for them, the widow has contributed “all she has, her entire livelihood.” In other words, she has given painstakingly. Her giving cost her a lot, but she has opted to take the “pain of giving”.
Our Lord knows all about poor widows. His own mother was a widow, and he might have watched Mary save to make sure they had bread on the table every day. Since she was a pious Jew, it is quite possible that Jesus might have also seen her scrimp just to be able to offer a donation to the temple. Who knows? Maybe the widow in the temple reminded him of his mother and her painstaking generosity.
It seems that God treasures painstaking giving–not because He likes pain, but because the most valuable giving really costs! God is pleased when we engage in painstaking giving because something beautiful happens to our heart. St Ignatius of Loyola has this prayer:
Eternal Word, only begotten Son of God, teach me true generosity.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve.
To give without counting the cost, to fight heedless of wounds,
to labour without seeking rest, to sacrifice myself without thought of any reward
save the knowledge that I have done your will. Amen.
Fr Sherwin Lapaan
