HOMILY SUNDAY 32-B
The Widow’s Mite
(1 Kg 17:10-16; Psalm 146; Heb 9:24-28; Mk 12:38-44)
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“To die for a good reason is something you can live with.”
This anonymous quote can be adapted to deepen it’s meaning: to give something up out of faith in God leads to the fullness of life. The readings today urge us to a faith strong enough to accept some degree of sacrifice in our lives as an expression of love and working for justice.
The theme of faith-filled sacrifice runs through all three readings today. In the first reading, the widow of Zarephath trusts the prophet Elijah and sacrifices what little flour and oil she has left to make a meal for him before herself and her son and is rewarded with a supply of food that does not run out.
In the gospel, Jesus warns against the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees then notices the poor widow who out of her love for and faith in God sacrifices what little she had to live on. It is interesting Jesus was “watching” people put in their donations, but he took “special note” of her, because of her faith and the nature of her gift coming out of her necessity and not her excess.
The second reading takes us to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ who gave his life on the cross to redeem us from sin and will come again to save those who believe in him.
The word sacrifice, taken from the Latin sacrificium, meaning to make sacred, refers to objects offered to God as an act of propitiation or worship. The term is also used metaphorically to describe selfless good deeds for others or a short-term loss in return for a greater gain.
The Catholic Encyclopedia states sacrifice is universally understood as the offering of a sense-perceptible gift to the Deity as an outward manifestation of our veneration for Him and with the object of attaining communion with Him. Strictly speaking however, this offering does not become a sacrifice until a real change has been affected in the visible gift (e.g., by slaying it, shedding its blood, burning it, or pouring it out). Christianity focuses on one ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice that was once offered by Christ in a bloody manner on the tree of the Cross.
When Jesus said “Take up your cross and follow me” he was referring to the faith and love his followers would need to have, to follow him into the fullness of life reaching a level of selfless, unconditional love that reaches to the heart of God. That expectation will always remain the ultimate test of the Christian’s faith in God, expressed by a selfless love for others.
I experienced that kind of sacrificial love in the slums of Meru when I accompanied Bro. Harley Mapes OMI and the pre-novices on their regular Tuesday visit to the people who live there. I impressed by their courageous ministry to the slum people, but also by the generosity of the poorest of the poor who themselves took up a collection for the poor, and shared with us a meal of tea and rice for us as volunteers before we returned to the comfort of our home a four kilometre walk away.
It is this kind of faith-filled sacrificial love to which we are called as followers of Jesus in our daily lives. And it is the Eucharist, which we call the un-bloody sacrifice of Jesus that nourishes us and empowers us to go and live out that love of God shared with us in Christ to all that we meet.
So, let us pray today our celebration of this memorial meal and thanksgiving sacrifice will help us live out a sacrificial faith that will make God’s love more real to the needy of our world.
