SOCL, Sunday32B
- Admin
- Nov 8, 2024
- 2 min read
Sunday November 10, 2024
A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins
See
Money can easily distort our attitudes and values. It is tempting to react more warmly to those who give more generously—we all do it. It is easy to overlook the motive behind giving and focus, not on the giver, but on the gift. We do have the expression that it’s the thought that counts. Usually, though, such proverbial wisdom is employed to help me/us be consoled when some expectation was not realised. Thus, this apparently consolatory thought acknowledges the tendency to the opposite, the attraction to the gift as such!! The Lord, however, reads our hearts.
Listen
Reflect
(Mark 12:38-44)
-The scribes are presented as ostentatious and devious, acting more out of self-interest than the love of God or people. There can be a element of selfinterest in each of us. Perhaps there have been times when you have been disturbed by glimpsing in yourself ‘other motives’ in your doing good. Recall when you were awakened to this fact. Where was the good news for you in these experiences?
-In material terms what the widow had to offer was very little. Recall when you felt yourself called to give and gave even though you apparently had very little. Perhaps you have had the experience of finding that what you thought was little and insignificant meant a great deal to another person. Recall some of those moments.
-The widow ‘gave everything she had, all she had to live on’. In doing so she placed herself in a very vulnerable position, trusting that things would work out. Have you ever found that what seemed a generous but reckless giving of yourself proved life-giving for yourself and others?
Pray
God, our provider you are the orphan’s hope and the widow’s bread. Strengthen our faith, that with simplicity of heart we may come to trust in you alone and hold back nothing in serving you. Amen.
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