The poor widow’s charity over the rich people

It is now the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time and today’s gospel reading is a very familiar story for us Catholics and continues to be a lesson for all of us. You can read it in Mark 12:38-44.

“38 In the course of his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, 39 seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets. 40 They devour the houses of widows and as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe condemnation.

41 He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. 43 Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. 44 For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

***

The first part of this gospel our Lord Jesus Christ talks with his disciples and warns them about the scribes who are often found in marketplaces with their long robes and accepting the greetings of the people and in the synagogues, they sit in places of honor, especially during banquets. These scribes prey on widows and pretend to be pious by their lengthy prayers. In short, our Lord calls these scribes as nothing but hypocrites. But more often than not, it is the people who elevate the status of the scribes, feeding into their already over-bloated egos!

2,000 years later, this is still true to many princes of the church and not necessarily coming from the Catholic Church. But then it is only natural for the faithful flock to give places of honor to their pastors or priests or bishops. The only problem is, when things get into their heads and they forget that the man of the cloth is supposedly the servant of God and therefore let me remind you of what our Lord Jesus Christ told his disciples which was written in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

If you ask me… I really can’t blame the priests or the pastors if their own flock gives them those high places of honor. I guess it is considered polite to treat our religious folk with some kind of reverence befitting their stature in society. However alas for us Filipinos… we also give the same attitude that we give our church leaders to our political leaders, where we put them on a pedestal. Yet these politicians (with the exception of a few) have brazenly taken our tax money and pocketed them in that scam that was exposed by Janet Lim Napoles. In short many of them are corrupt!

With the election season literally underway even if the official campaign period has yet to start… many Filipinos are already giving support to many presidential candidates who are being accused of corruption. At this point we can only caution our people that if their main objective is to get the money of the politicos during the elections… then by all means, get their money, but for our nation’s sakes, please vote for the candidates who are not corrupt or the ones who are known to be honest, but are totally incompetent!

The second part of today’s gospel story teaches us a lesson on real charity.  Again, the Lord Jesus Christ gathered his disciples and sat across the treasury in the temple where they observed how many rich people placed large sums of money as their contribution to the temple. Then they noticed that a poor widow came along and put in two small coins into the treasury.

Then the Lord told his disciples, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. 44 For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.” You might ask… when does one become charitable? A common answer would be, “When you give until it hurts!” So what does charity really mean? First of all the word comes from the Greek word “Agape” which means love. Remember the book written by Pope Benedict XVI entitled “Deus Caritas Est” which means “God is Love?”

Indeed it is an act of love when you give to another person. But our Lord gave emphasis to what the poor widow gave with her two coins, which were probably her last money… unlike the rich people who gave large sums of money, yet that giving really didn’t hurt them because they were giving away their surplus to the temple.

While the Lord justified the poor widow for giving her two last coins, the subliminal point that he is telling us is the sheer injustice happening in those ancient days, where widows become destitute. Even Today this injustice continues, the gap between the rich and poor have become a wide chasm.

*  *  *

For email responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com