Let us give our whole self to Christ...
Let us give our whole self to Christ...
Let us give our whole self to Christ…
First of all, let me take this opportunity to congratulate our First reconciliation Children and their families as they make their commitment. We, faith communities with their families, and teachers asked to make a commitment to pray for them and support you in their journey. Congratulations!
On Monday, we celebrate Veterans Day: veterans is the national day to recognize the sacrifices of our nation’s heroes. I read a prayer by St Ignatius of Loyola – a veteran - prayer about heart-felt generosity. It goes like this: “Dear Lord, teach me to be generous; teach me to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil, and not to seek for rest; to labor, and not to ask for any reward except that of knowing that I am doing your holy will. Amen.” Veterans Day is to honor them for their love and sacrifices for our safety. Our men and women in uniform in the past, present and the future, God bless you and Thank You!
Last weekends readings were about the Law of Love: love God and neighbor. There Jesus reminded the Jews “Shema” prayer, to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. This weekend we see two widows, who wholeheartedly trust God and share what they have.
From the first reading from the book of 1King (17:10-16), the widow of Zarephath was suffering from the famine. She did have a son, but he was a little child. No one cares about her, but God sent Prophet Elijah to her. In the Gospel of Luke 4:25 & 26, Jesus says, “Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.” First, she had to trust in God. She had to follow the law of hospitality, caring for the stranger and God rewarded her sacrificial generosity. If we read the following passage from 1King (17:17-24) we see the widow's faith was further confirmed when her son died and Elijah’s prayer raised him back to life.
The center of the Gospel (Mk 12:38-44) is a story of another widow. Jesus is sitting in the Temple with his disciples, in the area where people made donations to the Temple. Some would come with large sums of money and make sure that others would see them. The widow who came, though was poor, made her offering. She put only two copper coins, which make a penny.
Jesus praised her contribution and criticized the hypocrisy of some of the scribes, who acted out of self-serving motives rather than a desire to give glory to God. When we look at objectively the widow gave only a small amount, but in reality she gave an enormous amount since it was all that she had. On the other hand the scribes gave larger amounts of money from their excess without real sacrifice. For the widow, it was total dependence on God.
We heard the second reading from the letter to Hebrews (9:24-28) about the Eternal High Priest, Jesus. He offered himself to the Father on our behalf. The Old Testament high priests offered sacrifice again and again for their sins and sins of the people. We read in Hebrews (9:22&23) “According to the law almost everything is purified by blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified by these rites, but the heavenly things themselves by better sacrifices than these.” Christ did not simply prefigure the heavenly realities (Heb 9:24) by performing an annual sacrifice with a blood not his own (Heb 9:25); he offered the single sacrifice of himself as the final annulment of sin (Heb 9:26). At the Mass the priest enters into the eternal reality of Christ’s sacrifice on the Calvary. "In this Divine Sacrifice which takes place at the Mass is contained and sacrifice, in an unbloody manner, the same Christ that was offered once for all in blood upon the Cross... It is one and the same Victim, one and the same High Priest, who made the offering through the ministry of His priests today, after having offered Himself upon the cross yesterday; only the manner of the oblation is different" (Council of Trent. Sess. 22). The Mass is not only the commemoration, but it is a living representation of the sacrifice of the Cross.
When we come for the Mass, the two widows are the perfect example for us. we need to bring our whole self offer with bread and wine and ask him to transform our lives.