The Widow's MIght

To find this Sunday's readings (yesterdays) follow this link: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111112.cfm

My priest Fr. John was back in town so he gave us a good homily yesterday and I would've posted it but I spent the day with my parents and didn't have time when I made it home.

 What I got out of this weeks Homily
We need to become like the widow in the gospel, willing to give her last two pennies in order that God might hear her. There are two things we need to do in order to become like her.
1) Life will give us opportunities to give of ourselves and sometimes the gift of ourselves is more than the gift of our money
2)We need to trust more in God that He will provide for us no matter what- being free of fear is what true faith is, fear is often cited in the gospel as the opposite of faith

Jesus compares the widow to two groups of people: scribes and the rich who are tithing as well

Scribes and rich people are completely external (think a Christmas present without anything inside) whereas the widow gave from her heart, from her need.

Our challenge in becoming like the widow is that sometimes we substitute pious gestures for true conversion, or if we have the true conversion we keep it locked inside. We have to fight both these temptations!

Often in scripture we see that it is through the simple God's works are done. Both the gospel today and the OT reading show widows, women who stretched themselves in order to show the faith they had in God. We need to learn to stretch ourselves as well.