Monday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Revelation 14:1-3,4-5  +  Luke 21:1-4
November 23, 2020

“… but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.”

We live in a society in which values that are contrary to the Gospel are canonized.  A person’s value is measured in economic terms.  The poor are shunned as worthless.

God has a different set of values from those of our society.  When Jesus saw the wealthy putting large amounts of money into the collection box of the Temple, He was not impressed.  It was not as if the wealthy should not have given large sums, but Jesus was looking for something further.  He saw that something else in the poor widow who donated only two small coins.  He explains to us what He saw:  “[The wealthy] have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.”

It was the sacrifice of the widow that mattered, not the amount she gave.  We are called to be generous people, sacrificial in all our relationships with others.  God does not value us for giving our money; or, for that matter, for giving our time and talent.  God values us for the sacrifice from which all of our giving flows.  This ability to sacrifice oneself flows from the love that we receive in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.