Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
The First Book of Kings furnishes the first reading for Mass this weekend.
Political governance, in the minds of the ancient Hebrews, was not the chief function of their kings. Rather, assuring the nation’s faithfulness to God and to the law of God, given through Moses, was their kings’ primary duty.
Since this religious aspect was so vital, it is not surprising that many stories in the Books of Kings prominently include stories about the prophets who were active at the time. Prophets called the people to fidelity to God.
Such is the case this weekend. The central figure in the story is the prophet Elijah. In this reading, Elijah encounters at a city gate a woman collecting twigs and branches to use as firewood.
She obviously is quite poor. She must forage for fuel. She needs food to provide for her son. The presumption is that she was a widow, and her son was a child.
In fact, she is so poor that she tells Elijah that she and her son will die after they consume whatever she can bake using the meager amount of flour and oil on hand. They have nothing else.
Elijah tells her that she and the son will not die. He says that if she will feed him, then God will provide. The story ends by telling us that after she prepared food for Elijah, her flour and oil never ran out. He calls her to trust.
For its second reading, the Church this weekend gives us a passage from the Epistle to the Hebrews. Building upon traditional Jewish themes, the author writes about Jesus in the most soaring language.
The reading declares that God has ordained that all people must die, but God also has ordained that all may live if they turn to Jesus. This is possible because of the mystery of Christ being both God and man in the incarnation and his sacrifice of himself on Calvary.
St. Mark’s Gospel offers us the last reading. It is a familiar story, appearing also in Luke, but not in Matthew. In the story, the Lord speaks quite sternly about scribes. Scribes were able to read and write in an era when religious knowledge mattered more than anything else. While illiteracy was common, they were specialists in interpreting the law of Moses.
Jesus does not belittle the law of Moses but condemns the self-satisfaction and even sinful pride of the scribes.
He presents a contrast. At the time in that culture, widows could be very vulnerable. The poor widow who gave to the temple a small donation, but great for her in her poverty, is the paragon of love for God and trust in God. Jesus spoke of her as such.
Reflection
The widow’s mite is a story beloved by Christians for generations. It is a story of generosity. Even sinners, however, at times can be generous.
This widow’s generosity is a sign of her trust in God and of her understanding that the work of God on Earth, such as the worship provided through the religious treasury, was entitled to her cooperation.
Trusting in God has its challenges. The times may be uncertain, leading us to fret about unwelcome and indeed dire possibilities in the future. As in everything, the world, the flesh and the devil distract us.
The wise are humble. Humility is about recognizing that we belong to God and that he is supreme. The wise trust. We can never truly control our futures in this world. Reversals may come and inevitably do so. We must keep our eyes on genuine security, a place in eternity, by loving God and obeying God. †