Practicing Charity!

Sunday, November 10, 2024

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

1 Kgs 17:10-16; Heb 9:24-28; Mk 12:41-44

The thirty-second Sunday invites us to reflect on God being the anchor of hope for the oppressed and powerless. 

The readings unfold the theme of God’s protective care of the vulnerable. 

The first reading presents the poor widow at Zarephath, who is commissioned by God to feed His prophet Elijah. It is surprising to find God commanding a pauper to supply food for His servant. But that is the way the poor widow discovers the truth of God’s providence. By helping God’s prophet, her supplies do not dwindle. Instead, in sharing what she has, she discovers the joy of helping others and being helped in return by God Himself. Like the poor widow, we are called to discover God’s providence in and through our love for our neighbor. 

The second reading is a continuation of the former week that highlighted the sacrifice of Jesus the High Priest. The eternal priesthood of Jesus is God’s ultimate plan for the salvation of the world. The preeminence of the new covenant realized with Jesus’ sacrifice abolished the limitations of the old covenant. Moreover, the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice was such that it became all-sufficient, unlike the Levitical sacrifice that was being repeated. In sum, Jesus’ eternal priesthood reveals God’s redemptive plan for the world. 

In the Gospel, we find Jesus praising the widow’s humble offering. The poor widow’s offering finds more value in the eyes of Jesus. Why? Jesus clearly understands that poverty is not about the lack of material goods; rather, it is about powerlessness. The rich people who contributed to the treasury did not empty their wealth to prove that they had only God as their strength and refuge. If not for God or in the place of God, the rich had power, wealth, influence, or status to rely on. Hence, the rich needed God only as a showoff and not as their mainstay. Whereas for the poor widow, God was everything. While the rich people came to the offertory to impress others with the volume and jingling of the coins that they threw into the box, the poor widow came and went off unnoticed and unheard because all she could offer was two small copper coins that barely attracted people’s attention. By their ‘charity show,’ the rich came to flaunt their wealth. But the poor widow boasted of her faith in God. For the rich, wealth was their guardian; but for the widow, God was her protector. It is because poverty helps us to pledge our dependence on God above all else in a unique and mysterious way that Jesus talked of the poor and the poor in the spirit as inheriting the Kingdom of God. 

The readings of today offer some precious insights for reflection and action. 

Discipleship as Self-emptying: The self-emptying sacrifice of Jesus the High Priest calls for imitation. Sacrificing oneself, detachment, and surrendering oneself to God’s will are important lessons that we learn from Christ’s sacrifice. 

Spirit of Poverty: What we discover in the self-emptying sacrifice of Jesus is his voluntary poverty that emptied everything to fulfill God’s plan. Poverty cannot be simulated. If we have money, we can live simply, but we cannot be poor. Hence, we are not called to simulate poverty but to live it like Jesus. 

Importance of Charity: I have heard that ‘The beggars sell blessings.’ Hence, we help ourselves with blessings by helping them. The poor widow in the first reading discovers God’s providence through her charity. In and through her offering, the widow in the Gospel proclaims God’s providence that she has experienced thus far. Hence, growing in charity is to love others as God Himself loves us. 

Let us pray that, following God’s will, we may practice charity, the highest form of love. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar