The Widow’s Mite

Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Looking up, he saw rich people putting their offerings into the treasury; and he noticed a poverty-stricken widow putting in two small coins, and he said: ‘I tell you truly, this poor widow has put in more than any of them; for these have all put in money they could spare, but she, in her poverty, has put in all that she had to live on’” (Luke 21:1-4).

Each day the Jews would present all sorts of offerings to Our Lord in the temple in Jerusalem. Some people would bring agricultural products like flour or oil or toasted bread with a covering of oil and frankincense to make it pleasing to the Lord (cf. Lev. 2:1-2, 14-15).

A portion of the offering would be burnt while the remainder would be eaten by the priests in the interior of the temple (cf. Lev. 6:7-11).

The holocaust was that sacrifice whereby a previously sacrificed victim (a sheep or a bird) would be taken and then completely destroyed by fire. (Holocaust means wholly consumed by fire.)

In the time of Our Lord, there was perpetual sacrifice going on in the temple (cf. Dan. 8:11). This was like a prefiguring of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

Some Jews also donated money as their offering and contribution. The treasury was situated in a very visible place.

One day Our Lord sat on that spot and He “watched the multitude putting their money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums” (Mark 12:41). But then He observed a poor widow pass by and donate two small coins. It was an insignificant amount.

Yet Our Lord was moved by the widow's gift. He knew that she was offering everything that she owned. God valued her offering more highly than what the others had given. "For they contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living.”

She made her offering with great confidence in Divine Providence. God would reward her generosity even in her lifetime.

It's a very beautiful part of the Gospel. It shows us how much Our Lord values generosity and detachment from the things of this world.

These weeks coming up to Christmas is a good time for us to look a little bit at our generosity, and also to see how we could stimulate this virtue in people around us, particularly young people.

It’s very important for people to learn virtue in general, but particularly, generosity, while they're young. A young person who's stingy is not very nice, but an old person who's stingy is really the pits.

Haven’t they learned to be generous in the course of their lifetime? Or to realize that everything we have is a gift? St. Paul says, “What have you that you have not received?” (1 Cor. 4:7).

In teaching young people to be generous, it's what they have, which sometimes may be very little, but they also may have a certain amount of money. They may have clubs, toys, books that they could give to other people, but they also have their time and their energy.

In teaching them how to be generous with what they have, we're putting them on the pathway to happiness.

The world tells us that happiness comes from getting, spending, having. Christ tells us happiness comes from giving, serving, helping.

These are the challenges we have to try and place before young people. For the rich young man, Our Lord made that astonishing challenge: “Go, sell all that you have. Give to the poor. Come, follow me, and you will have treasure in heaven” (Matt. 19:21).

I heard of a little kid once, an orphan in Manila, who used to sell cigarettes at a street corner. He didn't know how to manage his money. There was a parish church nearby, Don Bosco Church, and he used to give his money to one of the Don Bosco Fathers to manage for him.

Every day he'd give the equivalent of ten, twenty, thirty shillings, and then he'd come and ask for some money to buy some rice, maybe ten, twenty shillings.

One day he went to the priest and asked for sixty shillings and that was about everything that he had saved up.

The priest was a bit curious; he'd never asked for that amount before. And so, he asked him, “Why do you want that amount of money?”

He said, “There's a lady who's given birth to her baby under the bridge and she has no milk for the baby, and milk costs sixty shillings a can. I told her I would buy some milk for the baby.” The priest was very moved.

Here was this orphan kid who had nothing in this world, a pair of shoes, a pair of shorts, and a T-shirt. He manages to save up what for him is a small fortune, but then at the first sight of someone in need, he was willing to go and spend all of that.

How happy God must be when He sees a soul like that shining up at Him!

In the coming weeks, there may be a lot of spending going on. There might be a lot of drinking, office parties, all sorts of celebrations. It would be good if we could infect all of those events with a social dimension.

People are going to spend a lot of money, training themselves. We need to see if we could put a certain amount aside to do something for poor people, have a similar celebration, or to make sure that they have the basic things, so that in particular, we teach young people to think twice—once for now, once for later—and to learn how the greatest joys in life come from giving, so the importance of generosity.

St. Augustine commented: “The rich gave much because they had much to give away. She gave everything that she possessed. Yet she had a great deal because she had God in her heart” (St. Augustine, Sermon 107A).

Mother Teresa liked to say, “Give until it hurts” (Mother Teresa, Address, February 3, 1994). Very good. Ideal. If we give away what we don't need, that's not generosity; that’s justice.

The Seventh Commandment talks about “the universal destination” of the goods of the earth (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Points 2401-2452). We are instruments in that universal destination or distribution of the goods of the earth, to help the goods of the earth to reach all people.

Sometimes that means getting rid of things that even we do need, or we do want—that’s generosity.

To possess God in the soul is worth all the gold in Solomon's mines. “Who has ever given more than this widow, who left nothing for herself?” (St. Augustine, Sermon 107A).

We shouldn't be afraid to be generous. God loves a generous heart.

Just that act of giving by a father in a family, by a mother in a family—the children learn from that example. They see you going out of your way, going the extra mile, noticing people who need things, organizing the family in such a way that they think of others.

It's a great culture to foster in family life.

Sometimes we may have to sacrifice things that seem to be necessary, although they may not really be necessary. Few things are truly necessary.

There was an eight-year-old little girl who asked her father once, “Dad, will you help me to recycle?” He was rather amused, chuckled a little bit, and said, “Why do you want me to recycle?”

“Because I want to save the planet.” “And why do you want to save the planet?” “Because that's where I keep all my stuff.”

These weeks and months are a good opportunity to help people to take another look at all their “stuff”—things they have accumulated over the past year, toys from last Christmas, books, clothes that perhaps we haven't used, and see how we can be a bit more generous with them.

We also have to try and offer God everything we are and everything we have, without saving anything for ourselves. “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7).

There's an old saying that says God is won over by the last coin.

When Our Lord saw the generosity of this woman, He wanted to communicate this joy to His disciples: ‘Do you see this woman, take a good look, what a beautiful thing!’ (cf. Mark 12:43).

The Sacred Heart of Jesus will feel the same way if He sees us being generous, or learning how to be more generous, or spreading that culture of generosity around us.

The Kingdom of God is priceless but at the same time, it costs whatever we have, down to the last penny. Peter and Andrew had to abandon their boats and their nets (cf. Luke 5:11). For the widow it was two copper coins (cf. Luke 21:2). For someone else, it was a cup of cold water (cf. Matt. 10:42). Everything.

There was a beggar once who was begging in the street, and a monk came along and tossed a jewel into the cup of the beggar. The beggar was a bit surprised. Nobody had ever given him a jewel before.

His first thought was, ‘It must be a fake. No one would ever give me a jewel.’

But he decided to go to the pawn shop and see if it was worth anything. He might get the price of a meal out of it. He went to the pawnshop, and he found it was worth US$50,000. It was worth a fortune.

He spent the next three days wandering around the place in a daze, thinking of how he need never be hungry again, how he could get some fine clothes, how he could have a roof over his head.

After three days, he sort of came back to earth and he began to ask himself, “I wonder why that monk gave me the jewel. He must have known what it was worth; he can't have been stupid.”

After thinking about it for a certain period of time, he came to the conclusion that “the monk gave me the jewel because he has something else that was worth more than the jewel.”

When he thought that he has something that was worth more than the jewel, that's what he began to want. “I think I would prefer to have that thing that made him give me the jewel rather than the jewel itself.”

He decided to go and seek out the monk and find out where he lived. He found him and he asked him, “Look, I'll make a deal with you. I will give you back the jewel if you will give me what it was that made you give it to me.”

Of course, he was talking about the virtue of generosity. It's a beautiful virtue. It's worth an awful lot. We have to try and cultivate it.

There might be times in our life when we've been very generous. We have to try and preserve and maintain and foster that generosity. We have to go back and begin again in this virtue.

“Launch out into the deep.” Initially, Our Lord asked the apostles just to put out a little from the shore, a little from the land. It was comfortable, it was easy, it was safe. But then there came a moment when He said, “Now launch out into the deep. Lower your nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4).

He wanted them out in the deep water with the wind blowing in their face, because that's where the big fish were. Our Lord wants our generosity without conditions, saying yes to Him.

We find Our Lord asking us for something—try and say yes, whatever it may be. We might not feel like it; we might feel attached to something; we might find it difficult. But yet, if that's what Our Lord is asking of us, that's what He wants from us.

Joseph and Mary around this time had to leave everything and give themselves very generously to the plans of God. They go off to Bethlehem with nothing (Luke 2:4).

Again, later on, they renewed their generosity in going to Egypt and their generosity in staying there (Matt. 2:13-15).

It may be easy to be generous at some stages of our life; at other stages of our life, it might cost us a little more.

There was a service in the U.S. one time where a pastor was inviting people to come up and share their success stories. One man went up to tell the story of how he had come into this church many decades ago and he heard the pastor saying, “Give everything to God, give everything to God.”

He had one dollar to his name, which was in his pocket, and he decided to follow the advice of the pastor. So he gave everything to God; he gave that one dollar.

He said, “Now I'm a multi, multi, multimillionaire, and I think that I am a multimillionaire because I gave that one dollar. I gave everything.”

He shared a very beautiful story, and then he went to sit down in his place. There was a little old lady beside him who leaned over to him and said, “Oh, that was beautiful. I dare you to do that again.”

It's easy to be generous with God when we don't have too much to give, but when God blesses us with all sorts of things, then it can be a bit more challenging.

St. Paul said to the Romans: “I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1).

There may be certain opportunities on a daily basis for us to be generous with our time, with our patience, with our charity, and sometimes also with the material things that we have.

These weeks coming up to Christmas—it's a particular opportunity each year to go the extra mile, to think out of the box, or to see how we can spread that “culture of generosity” (Pope Francis, Message, November 25, 2018) in our family, or in our road, in our environment, in our office—how we can stir other people up to practice this virtue and to get great joy from it.

We offer ourselves in the little details of each day, from the time of our Morning Offering to the sacrifices that we may make to bring about greater social harmony, the “please” and the “thank you,” the “I'm sorry,” the smile.

Our heart has to be always open to the call of Our Lord, so that like Joseph and Mary, we're always saying “yes.”

As the year of St. Joseph is drawing to a close—it will close on December 8^th^ (2021)—we could ask the Holy Patriarch that we might learn how to follow his example in this virtue, so that our generosity is complete, without any conditions.

If ever we were to say, “Lord, I couldn't give you this thing” or “If you asked that thing of me, I couldn't give it to you” or “I hope Our Lord isn't going to ask me because that is the last thing that I could do” or “I just don't think I could bring myself to give it or to do it or to separate me from it”—that will be the very thing that Our Lord will ask of you because He wants your whole heart.

He doesn't want our friendship with Him to be half-hearted. If it's half-hearted, it will not endure. We’ll find ourselves increasingly alienated from Our Lord.

Our Lord wants us to be coherent with our faith, giving ourselves without reserve, and first and foremost, giving ourselves in our spiritual life, the norms of our plan of life, our customs, generous with our time, generous with our priorities, generous with the things of God, so that Our Lord occupies the center of our thoughts and affections.

We can carry out this total dedication by being faithful to God in the day-to-day details of our earthly life.

We will be more generous if we realize the gift. We spend our day thanking God for all the material things, the spiritual things, that He's given to us. That will also foster our generosity because we'll see how we have been blessed. So there's great potential in all these areas.

We have to “put ourselves unconditionally in the presence of God, ‘like clay in the hands of the potter’ (Jer. 18:6), and humbly confess to him: ‘You are my God and my all’ (Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 167).

Lord, I want to give you everything. Help me to hold nothing back. Help me to see how generous you have been with me.

An ancient legend talks about how there was a kingdom where the subjects were obliged to present a gift to the king whenever they would meet him. One day a humble farmer found himself in the royal presence empty-handed.

So he cupped a little water in his hand and made his offering of this cupped hand full of water. The king was very pleased by the devotion and piety of this simple farmer that he bestowed upon him a bowl full of gold coins.

Our Lord is more generous than all the kings of the earth. He has promised to reward us one-hundredfold in this life and in the life to come (cf. Luke 18:28-30). He wants us to be happy in this life, contented.

How many people do you know in this world who are contented? It's not a very common thing for us to come across. Yet it's a beautiful thing. Our Lord wants that for us.

Those who follow Our Lord with generosity will experience His peace and joy, gaudium cum pace. That gift is like an anticipation of heaven. To have Our Lord near us is the best compensation possible.

St. Teresa of Ávila said: “If you but lift your eyes to heaven, thinking of him, he will repay you, never fear” (cf. Teresa of Ávila, The Way of Perfection).

The Lord is waiting for our work, for us to offer it; waiting for the offering of the difficulties of our daily life, of our deeds of service, of the gift of our time and energy to others.

Happiness comes from giving. Whenever John Paul II talks about love, he always talks about love in terms of giving. We find our joy there.

We live in a culture of getting, having, spending. Christ tells us that happiness comes from giving, helping, serving.

It's necessary to go beyond the limits of strict justice. Go the extra mile.

We try to imitate the exemplary conduct of this poor widow. She teaches us to give with generosity even that which is meant for our own needs.

We could “remember that God does not measure our human actions by a standard which stops at the appearance of ‘how much’ is given.

“God measures according to the standard of interior values of ‘how’ one places oneself at the disposal of others. He measures according to the degree of love with which we freely dedicate ourselves to other people” (John Paul II, Address, November 10, 1985).

Lord, help me to be more generous. “It's a virtue of great souls, who know how to find their reward in the act of giving (Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God, Volume 1).

He says, “It is worth the effort to give ourselves totally so as to correspond to the love and confidence that God has given us” (J. Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 129).

As Christians in the middle of the world, Our Lord wants us to try and foster this virtue in other people, people of means, so that we can help them to do wonderful projects for the service of other people, for the good of humanity, for the good of the Church.

We should try and strengthen and foster that generosity—the apostolate of asking—of asking people for great things, to be detached from the gifts that God has given to them.

God gave Himself totally for us by His death on the Cross, and also in the craziness of love in the Blessed Eucharist.

Lord, help me to be generous with my time, with my energy, with my effort, with my money, with my material things, but also with my understanding, with my patience, with my apostolate.

Generosity means to give without demanding something in return. It's not that ‘I give you this so you will give me that.’ It's giving unconditionally.

Giving enlarges the heart. One of the ways that love expresses itself is in giving. Love has clear expressions. We show our love with deeds. True love is founded on sacrifice, manifested in external works.

To live close to God means to run risks. Our Lord is not happy sharing. He can invite us and ask us for a lot, to give everything. But if you remember that everything originally came from Him, then it's just a logical consequence.

St. Josemaría says, “In doing their work and living their lives as children of God in Opus Dei, my children should be not only fulfilling but loving, which means to joyfully give more than is demanded by our duty.”

We should try and be generous in our struggle for virtue; to be better, to begin again. We can think of the generosity of the Child in the manager.

“In Bethlehem,” St. Josemaría said, “nobody holds anything back” (J. Escrivá, Letter, November 14, 1974). The Magi came with their finest gifts (cf. Matt. 2:11). It's all a story of beauty and of generosity.

Lack of generosity can be ugly. It can be a manifestation of selfishness, which can be a slow-acting poison that has a deadly effect.

St. Ignatius talks about “to give, and not to count the cost; to fight, and not to heed the wounds; to toil, and not to seek for rest; to labor, and not to seek for any reward” (Prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola).

But we live a lifetime of generous giving.

“We should offer the Lord,” we're told in The Forge, “the sacrifice of Abel. A sacrifice of young, unblemished flesh, the best of the flock; of healthy and holy flesh; a sacrifice of hearts that have one love alone—you, my God. A sacrifice of minds, which have been shaped through deep study and will surrender to your Wisdom; of childlike souls who will think only of pleasing you. —Lord, receive even now this sweet and fragrant sacrifice.”

He says, “We have to learn how to give ourselves, to burn before God like the lamp placed on a lampstand to give light to all those who walk in darkness, like the sanctuary lamps that burn by the altar, giving off light till their last drop is consumed” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Points 43-44).

All the offerings that we make to Our God will be pleasing if we offer them through Our Lady. St. Bernard recommended: “Entrust your small gift to the care of Mary. She will ensure that your offering is favorably received by the Lord” (St. Bernard, Homily on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary).

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

OLV