Sunday Reflection, November 12: Giving the Little That We Have

Scripture Readings: http://www.usccb.org/nab/111206.shtml
1 Kings 17: 10-16
Psalm 146
Hebrews 9: 24-28
Mark 12: 38-44

This coming week is the period of registration for the spring semester here at Catholic Theological Union. As a professor, I have found myself sitting down with graduate students discussing their academic and ministerial programs. We have been trying to ascertain the best courses for them to take, how many courses they should try, and how to balance the other commitments in their lives. Some of these students are seminarians who have a lot of commitments in their religious communities. Others are single young adults who are often working other jobs while pursuing their graduate degrees. Some are men or women who are married with children, trying to juggle family life with the demands of academic pursuits. One of the recurring refrains throughout these conversations has been that of the challenge of meeting multiple demands with limited resources of time and energy. Sometimes it seems that there just isn’t enough – enough time, energy, money, etc.

It is a strange but a beautiful thing that the one person whom the Gospels hand on to us as a pattern of generosity is a woman who gave two small copper coins worth a few cents. The story of the “widow’s mite” in this Sunday’s Gospel is an endearing one because it speaks to us about Jesus’ insight into the heart of people and his ability to perceive the real, interior motive and meaning of their actions. This story is also appealing because this poor widow stands as a marvelous contrast to the pretentious scribes whom Jesus admonishes in the first part of the Gospel reading. As Jesus perceives these religious officials, they thrive on pomp and splendor, on public recognition and social perks. If there was anything that Our Lord despised it was a false, self-seeking religiosity that made a mockery of true holiness and that manipulated people, instead of serving them.

In the Bible widows and orphans represent all of the weak and defenseless of the world, those with no security and little support. In this Sunday’s first reading, when the widow of Zarephath and her son share food and drink with the prophet Elijah -- all they have in the midst of a devastation famine -- the Scriptures suggest that it is the lowly of the world who are those who have a depth and an integrity that expresses itself in real giving. The Scriptures remind us that authentic generosity involves risk and sacrifice, a giving that exacts something of us. True giving is measured not so much in raw amounts as in the cost to the giver. These readings challenge us to reflect upon how we measure our own giving, not simply of money, but of ourselves.

In another way, I think that the story of the widow’s mite speaks to us about our feelings of poverty and limitation in the face of so many demands and expectations in our lives. The kind of poverty and limitation I heard this week as I listened to students who are trying to balance multiple demands in their lives. The topic of stress has become a very timely one in our society. It is a word that has entered our everyday vocabulary. Stress workshops retain their popularity in many venues. Expectations always seem to be mounting with regard to our personal and family lives, our jobs and other endeavors. And so often the harder we try to do it all, the more we realize that we just cannot get it all done.

I suspect that many of us are often struck by the feeling, even overwhelmed by it at times, of just having too many things to do. Often these things are in themselves good and valuable. Perhaps this is because there are many more opportunities available to us today than in the past. It may also be due to the fact that we have a heightened awareness of the needs and expectations of others. Often we feel that we just don’t have enough – enough, time, energy, money, or expertise. We experience our own poverty. We are like the widow in the Gospel who had only two small coins. Her meager gift could not really do very much to keep the Temple going. In comparison with the gifts of others it must have seemed quite insignificant. For this widow, however, those two small coins represented the gift of her whole self and so were of inestimable value.

None of us can do it all; none of us can be all things to all people. We cannot live up to everything that students or children or friends or parents or even priests should be. None of us has as much expertise in our jobs or professions as we would like. None of us is as effective in addressing problems in our own community or the larger world as we would hope to be. Yet each one of us is gifted with a couple of coins, with the time, talents and resources that enable us to do a few things. We are able to do a few things in cooperation with others. This realization is not an excuse for complacency or mediocrity, because we have heard the Gospel summons to authentic giving, to generous use of the gifts God has given us. It is, though, permission to recognize and to confess our own limitations, to acknowledge them to ourselves and to the God who made us. This faithful God who created us, who is closer to us than we are to ourselves, is quite well aware of our limitations. At the same time that we acknowledge our personal limitations, we are also called to deepen our trust that, like the widow’s two small coins, what we have to offer, when given generously and from the heart, is of immense and lasting value for the reign of God.

Robin Ryan, CP