Homily by Deacon Bob
The small group that I’m part of talked about these readings last week and there’s a couple of things that need explanation. In the gospel (Mk 12:38-44), Jesus speaks of scribes who devour the houses of widows and as a pretext recite lengthy prayers. Scribes were experts and teachers of the law. They were very highly regarded in Jewish culture. However, it was against the law for them to charge money for teaching the law, so they had to rely on donations which were given as it was considered very meritorious to support a scribe. Unfortunately, there must have been some who took advantage of pious widows and effectively robbed them and to justify their thievery they would recite lengthy prayers so people would look at them and say oh look at how holy he is.
In total contrast, Jesus praises the poor widow who gives all she has to God. She’s incredibly generous and trusts herself completely to God, that He will provide for her.
That brings us to our first reading (1 Kgs 17:10-16) and another poor widow. I’m going to back up just a couple of verses that help give some context:
8 Then the word of the Lord came to him[Elijah], 9 “Arise, go to Zar′ephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” 1 Kgs 17
So, that explains why he’s asking her for some water and food. But he sounds rather rude, especially when he tells her to first make him something to eat and then she can take care of herself and her son. According to Brandt Pitre, what Elijah is doing is inviting her to trust God. This woman is a foreigner, she’s not an Israelite. She even says, as the LORD, your God lives… So, Elijah wants her to trust God. It’s like when Jesus said to the foreign woman who asked Him to cure her daughter, ‘it’s not right to take the food of the children and give it to the dogs.’ That’s an incredibly rude statement but Jesus is inviting her to exercise her faith. So, Elijah is basically saying to her, put God first by providing for me, His prophet, and then He will provide for you. It’s exactly what Jesus said at the sermon on the Mount, seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you. And this is what we see with this widow. She trusts God and He provides.
I’d like to reflect for a bit on trusting in God, having perfect confidence in God. In the Dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena, God speaks about this. He says,
Why do you not put your trust in me your Creator? Because your trust is in yourselves. Am I not faithful and loyal to you? Of course I am… But it seems they do not believe that I am powerful enough to help them, or strong enough to aid and defend them against their enemies, or wise enough to enlighten their understanding, or merciful enough to want to give them what is necessary for their salvation, or rich enough to enrich them, or beautiful enough to give them beauty, or that I have food to feed them or garments to re-clothe them. Their actions show me that they do not believe it.[1]
In “The Spiritual Combat” by Fr. Scupoli, which is one of the spiritual classics and was the favorite book of St. Francis de Sales, he begins with 2 things that he says are absolutely essential in the spiritual life: perfect trust and confidence in God, and distrust of self. St. Teresa of Avila, in the Book of her Life, says the reason she waffled for almost 20 years between God and the world was because she trusted too much in herself.[2]
Distrust of self simply means that we recognize that the supernatural life in our soul is grace. As Jesus said, “apart from me, you can do nothing”. Jn 15:5 Every growth of charity in our soul is His grace. Perfect trust and confidence in God means that when we sincerely ask Him for the grace, He’ll give it. As St. Paul said, “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.” Phil 4:13.
Fr. Scupoli and St. Therese, she says the same thing, tell us one way to gauge how well we are trusting in God and not ourselves.
How do we react when we fall? If we get angry or discouraged, that’s a sign we’re trusting ourselves. Think of something that you know you’re not good at. I had a friend in Seminary who had a terrible voice and every so often when he would be the deacon at Mass, he would have to sing the Allelluia verse, and you would see this smile come over his face because he knew he was about to subject us to an awful sound, and I think he actually enjoyed it. He’s a great example of someone who knew his limitation and didn’t get upset by it. That’s how we are. If we know we can’t do something, we don’t get upset when we can’t do it. If we get upset when we fail, it’s because we think we should be able to do better.
Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, in “The Practice of the Presence of God”, says “that when he had failed in his duty, he only confessed his fault, saying to God, I shall never do otherwise, if You leave me to myself; it is You who must hinder my falling, and mend what is amiss. That after this, he gave himself no further uneasiness about it.” {Second Conversation} I know a person who used to say, ‘ok God, you fix it.’
They’re not being cavalier or dismissive. They recognize something that’s very very important. We can be trying very hard to be good, and be failing, and this can easily put us on a downward spiral that will ultimately lead us away from God because it’s no fun to keep failing. We know that we’re called to be holy, to be obedient, to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and our neighbor as ourselves, but we keep failing, and we can easily fall into despair and even anger and rebellion. The way to get on the upward spiral even in our falls, is to be firmly grounded in these 2 pillars – distrust of self, total confidence in God; apart from me you can do nothing, I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.
Think of Jesus, His heart. The good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep, who leaves the 99 and seeks out the one who has gone astray. The one who came for sinners. The one who spoke to the woman at the well when no one else wanted to be near her. The one who showed compassion and mercy to the woman caught in adultery. The one who reached out to Zacheus. The one who called Matthew, a tax collector, hated by Israel, to be one of his apostles. The one who helped everyone who came to him and asked for his help. As another writer said, He didn’t shed one drop of sweat or blood for condemnation, He poured out everything that we might be forgiven. How can we doubt?
I know there are other parables and sermons where Jesus says we must be holy. And here’s the good news – we can do this, if we learn distrust of self and total trust in God, like our two widows today who had nothing in themselves and complete trust in God.
God Bless You!
[1] Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, The Gospel of Matthew, p. 111.
[2] St. Teresa of Avila, “The Book of Her Life”, ch 8, par 12.
Pain of Grace 