reflections: 32nd sunday in ordinary time

Today's Gospel Reading presents two contrasting life dispositions. One is that of the scribes characterized by pride and selfishness, the other that of the poor widow characterized by selfless giving. Each disposition points inevitable to its goal. The former to where, according to Jesus Himself, there is "gnashing and grinding of teeth", meaning eternal death, the latter to endless life with God. Jesus strongly warns us against the first and points out to us the urgency of the second. It is an urgency because unless we learn to give then we are all going to perish with the fate of the Evil One.

The selfless giving of the widow in the Gospel is supported by the example of another widow in the First Reading. When we give without counting the cost, the rewards are more than we can ever imagine. The widow in the First Reading, by giving the prophet Elijah what she and her son had to live on, found to her amazement that her jar brimmed with flour for a year. Certainly more than she expected. The words of Jesus for the poor widow in the Gospel is more than a proclamation of her eventual destiny.

In the Gospels we find Christ thanking the Father for revealing to little ones the wisdom and the realities of the Kingdom of Heaven. One of these, of course, is the wisdom of selfless giving. Giving in to pride and selfishness is definitely movement that is inward. Inward movement screamingly proclaims that we are the standard. We are not! The standard is life in God. The movement of the mind and heart, therefore, should be outward to God. And there is no movement towards God unless we include the neighbor in the picture. In selfless giving, we pursue an outward movement that eventually ends up in God.

In giving, our example par excellence is Jesus Christ the High Priest. Nobody can share His life and glory without learning how to give. When we give from the heart and not because we have no more need of what we give, we are gradually transformed in to the image of Jesus Christ. We are, in fact, securing our future with God by our exercise in sefless giving. It is the way of Jesus and hopefully we make ourselves one of tose 'little ones' to whom the secrets of the Kingdom has been revealed.

Fr Jess A Enciso