On the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time this year, two poor widows, one in the First Reading from the First Book of Kings, the other in the Gospel according to Mark, are presented as models of generosity.  

 

At a time when there was scarcity of food because of a drought, left with just a little food for herself and for her son, only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug, the poor widow of Sidon showed generosity to the prophet Elijah.  

To the prophet who had asked her for a little water and a scrap of bread, she replied: “I am just gathering a stick or two to go and prepare this for myself and my son to eat, and then we shall die.”  

But Elijah assured her: “Do not be afraid,” he said. “For thus the Lord speaks, the God of Israel: ‘Jar of meal shall not be spent, jug of oil shall not be emptied, before the day when the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth.”

Faith in the words of the prophet spurred her to go off to prepare the food. And it was sufficient for her, for her son and for Elijah. But while her faith is exemplary, it does not provide legitimacy for exploitation on the part of today’s religious leaders. In today’s harsh economic climate, Biblical literalism provides no excuse for extortion in the name of God.

That widow’s generosity is replicated in the poor widow encountered in the Gospel. While others were putting money into the treasury out of their abundance, she put in all that she had to live on. She put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny. One penny would be the equivalent of one kobo in terms of Nigerian money.  

When I was a little boy in primary school, one kobo could buy two wraps of Tom - Tom. Today, we no longer see the kobo coin. It has lost its value. Even if you see it, it can buy you nothing. But that was what this woman put into the treasury. And, seeing what she did, Jesus called his disciples and said to them what was astonishing: “This poor widow,” said Jesus, “has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury.”

If Jesus had simply said she put in more than others, it would have been shocking. But he said something even more shocking when he said she put in “more than all who have contributed to the treasury.”  

The generosity of the poor widow in the Gospel is presented to the disciples as exemplary because it exceeded the generosity of others. “They have all put in money they had over, but she from the little she had, has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.”

Those words invite and challenge us to take a second look, that is, to make a reappraisal of our own way of understanding what generosity is. Who is a generous person?

Jesus is teaching us that generosity is not measured in terms of what is seen to be given but in terms of the spirit behind the giving. The true value of generosity is not in figures but in love, that is, in the love that animates the giver. The true value of generosity is in giving out of love. Generosity is a virtue, a good disposition. Love is what activates virtue, and love is what confers value on virtue. Love of God and love of neighbor activate and confer value on generosity.

This was explained to St. Catherine of Siena in her dialogue with God. In that dialogue, St. Catherine learnt that “no virtue can have life in it except from charity, and charity is nursed and mothered by humility.” There is no virtue in the one who fails to love God and neighbor.

The eternal Father said to Catherine: “If a woman has conceived a child but never brings it to birth for people to see, her husband will consider himself childless. Just so, I am the spouse of the soul, and unless she gives birth to the virtue she has conceived [by showing it] in her charity to her neighbors in their general and individual needs in the ways I have described, then I insist that she has never in truth even conceived virtue within her. And I say the same of vice: “Every one of them is committed by means of your neighbors” (Catherine of Siena, Dialogue, 11)

It is in Jesus that we find the greatest example of generosity activated by love. Jesus showed the greatest act of generosity by doing his Father’s will to the point of dying on the cross that we might live. Our own generosity, indeed any of our virtues, has value only because we follow him in his teaching on the greatest commandment, only because we imitate the generosity of the crucified Son of God.

When Jesus commended the gesture of the poor widow to his disciples as worthy of emulation, He did so because her gesture came very close to perfectly representing the generosity of Jesus himself. The disciple imitates the master. The poor widow is thus presented to the disciples as an exemplary disciple herself.

She gave all that she had to live on. Jesus on the cross did not just give us all that he had to live on. He gave us his very life. And He Himself said it: there can be no greater love than to lay down one’s life for those one loves.  

In the generosity of His death on the cross, He who is our High Priest offered himself as sacrifice on our behalf. He appeared in the actual presence of God on our behalf. In that generosity, He offered Himself once and for all to take the faults of many, our faults, on Himself. The death of the Son of God is the prime example of generosity. That is why the true value of generosity is in imitating the love of the crucified Christ. It is in overcoming the tendency to self-centeredness that can put a stain or a dent on our generosity.

When we offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass, we do so in memory of the generosity of the crucified Christ. The holy Mass is a memorial of the generous love of the Son of God. At Mass, this memorial of generosity, we receive the body and blood of Christ, fruits of his most generous love, fruits hanging on the cross, fruits hanging on the tree of crucifixion.

Our world is wounded by selfishness, by the bad habit of working for one’s good to the detriment of the good of others. Our society is afflicted with an increasingly frightening recession of the sense of common good. But in the midst of darkness of selfishness, there are flashing lights of generosity. Even in these days of harsh economic conditions, we see parents who show love to their children by looking after them. Think of how much it costs to feed a family, to pay for the education of a child.

Yet, there are parents who give up personal comfort to assume the responsibility of parenting. Indeed, the light of generosity shines in the darkness of selfish love, and darkness cannot understand it.

We who partake of the Mass, we whom the crucified Christ offers fruits of His generosity at every Mass must refrain from crucifying others by our own self-centeredness. For, at every Mass, we receive the generous love of Jesus so that we may have the grace to overcome the obstinate refusal to be truly generous that selfishness represents. We who receive the body and blood of Christ must be agents of positive change in the world. That is what we are sent into the world to do when the priest addresses us at the end of Mass, saying, “The Mass is ended.”  

The Mass is ended. But our mission begins. The mission of making the world a better place. And that mission begins here and now. Let us, therefore, go into the world imitating Christ Jesus by our own generosity, by making the world a better place.