"The jar of meal was not spent nor the jug of oil emptied, just as the Lord had foretold through Elijah" (1 Kings 17:16)
Last Sunday we were presented with two widows – one in the first reading and one in the Gospel. As ever, there is a revealing lesson in the presentation of the two widows, both of whom act generously and, it appears, more than correctly. But there is a bit more going on that Jesus wants us to know.
The widow in the first reading on Sunday, 10 November, only had enough food to stave off starvation for a short while but she followed Elijah’s request and miraculously received enough to eat.
If we are following his will, God will intervene directly to help us. Essential to obeying his will is charity to others, which also benefits us: if the widow had ignored Elijah’s plea then both of them, along with her son, would have died.
It is tempting to read the subsequent Gospel as a parallel: the generous widow gives Elijah everything and the widow in the Gospel gives all she owns to the Temple. But the circumstances are very different: Elijah asks out of desperation; the Temple administrators are not facing starvation.
In fact, just before this passage, Jesus cleanses the Temple, greedily made into a "den of robbers", and in the following section he predicts its total destruction. At the start of the Gospel he even berates the scribes "who swallow the property of widows, while making a show of lengthy prayers" (12:40).
It seems Jesus is not praising the widow for her foolhardy generosity but attacking those who persuade the poor to enrich the Temple by ruining themselves. These scribes may have even used the example of Elijah and the widow to justify their demands to the widows of their day.
Ironically, they themselves should have imitated the widow who helped Elijah: they were called to share with those who had nothing, to provide for the widow from their excess, not to "swallow" her livelihood.
God will intervene directly when needed, but he wants to work through us as much as possible: he wanted to feed that widow through the scribes – as he fed Elijah through the other widow – but they were not listening to his will.
We need both God’s wisdom to avoid false demands made in his name, and his own charity to aid the needy. These gifts are beyond our reach – the repeated offerings of the Old Law could not earn them – but Jesus has granted them to us by his sacrifice.
He entered heaven at his Ascension with his own blood in his own risen body, not "like the high priest going into the sanctuary year after year with the blood that is not his own" (Hebrews 9:25).
By this self-offering, Jesus has already destroyed all our sins, so "when he appears a second time, it will not be to deal with sin" (9:28) – we need never fear our sins as long as we are ready to ask forgiveness.
Jesus will "reward with salvation those who are waiting for him" (9:28), so let us strive to love others as the widow served Elijah until Christ comes.
<em>Photo: 'The Widow’s Mite (1886), by <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/catholic-content-of-james-tissots-art-drew-both-adoration-and-scorn/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">James Tissot</mark></a>, which illustrates the biblical account of a poor widow’s generous offering to the Temple treasury (Mark 12:41-44).</em>
<em>Fr David Howell is an assistant priest at St Bede’s in Clapham Park. His previous studies include canon law in Rome, Classics at Oxford and a licence in Patristics at the Augustinianum Institute in Rome. He is a regular contributor to the ‘Herald’; his other articles can be accessed <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/author/frdavidhowell/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">here</mark></a>.</em>
