A reflection on Luke 21:1-4
Monday of the Thirty-Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
©️2024 Gloria M. Chang
With humble “pennies for paradise,” a widow’s faith ignites the eternal treasury of heaven’s boundless grace.
When Jesus looked up he saw some wealthy people putting their offerings into the treasury and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins. He said, “I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest; for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.”
Luke 21:1-4
Letting Go
While scribes “devour the houses of widows” (Luke 20:47), the unsuspecting poor offer their sustenance to the temple treasury. Infuriated by the disparity, Jesus observes the rich depositing large sums from their surplus wealth.
The incident of the widow’s mite, sandwiched between Jesus’ criticism of the rapacious scribes and his prophecy of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, unmasks the socioeconomic injustice at the heart of institutional religion. The widow’s lavish offering from her heart will soon build not the temple in Jerusalem but the temple of Christ’s Body, the new Israel.
“All that you see here—the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down” (Luke 21:6). As Christ supplants the Jerusalem temple, he becomes the true treasury of the faithful.
With extraordinary faith and devotion, the widow entrusts her needs to the Lord. Letting go of her last pennies, she falls into the arms of God, who lifts up the lowly.
A widow gives pennies for paradise—
Her livelihood—a total sacrifice.
Traditional Chinese Translation
《幾分小錢換天堂》
一個寡婦為了天堂而捐出幾分小錢-
她的生活 – 一種全然的犧牲。
Pennies for paradise?
Or widow’s mite?
Every Lent we’d learn
Lessons of giving.
Teachers gave each student
A small cardboard box.
Daily drops into the coin slot,
Trying to imitate Gospel living.
After we’d given up daily treats,
At the end of Lent,
Boxes begged to be emptied.
Mixed in the flow of metals,
A surprise dollar folded small.
Money counted, recorded,
Totaled up for each class.
Which was most generous of all?
From the students in New York city,
Off goes a check for the missions.
Across the globe to Asia or Africa,
Little mites bringing human dignity.
Wonderful recollections of Catholic school charity, Ellen!