The Wisdom of the Poor Widows – Homily for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; November 10, 2024

It is appointed to men to die once, and after this the judgment.

In the judgment, desire for God will be inescapable. Hell is desire for God that has been rejected and forever frustrated; purgatory is desire for God, longing for fulfillment after being postponed; heaven is desire God eternally fulfilled. During this life, we exercise our desire for God in prayer.

In biblical times, the widow was seen as among the most vulnerable and helpless in human society, most in need protection. The prophet Isaiah calls the people to cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression; he then adds, to make matters more concrete, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. (Is 1:16-17) Today, the Psalmist tells us that God sustains the fatherless and the widow and elsewhere speaks of him as the Father of the fatherless and the protector of widows. (Ps 68[67]:5)

We meet with a poor widow in today’s 1^st reading and again in today’s Gospel. The first believes in the word of the prophet, welcomes him, provides him shelter, and is fed miraculously for a year, together with her son. The other gives her whole livelihood to God, putting her two small coins in the temple treasury. To these two widows we could add another widow, whom Jesus sets before our eyes in his parable of the widow and the unjust judge, a parable that was part of his exhortation to pray always without growing weary (cf. Lk 18:1); this third widow is given to us as an example of prayer because she wins her case from the judge by sheer persistence. Jesus comments, Will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? (Lk 18:7)

So, while we see that the widow calls for protection, the faithful widow also has something to teach us. St. Paul describes the faithful widow as one who is desolate, trusts in God, and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. (1 Ti 5:5)

St. Augustine wrote a letter to a certain widow name Proba, a letter on prayer that is one of the finest teachings ever written on the subject. Now Proba was not a poor widow, but noble, wealthy, and the mother of an illustrious family. (Letter 130 1.1)

Yet, St. Augustine urges her “to account yourself desolate in this world, however great the prosperity of your lot may be.” (Letter Ibid. 2.3) He goes further and after describing the sorts of trials and afflictions that are our common lot in this life, he speaks of the lot of the Christian in this world in terms of the “desolation” that characterizes the widow.

“In the darkness, then, of this world, in which we are pilgrims absent from the Lord as long as we walk by faith and not by sight, (2 Cor 5:6-7), the Christian soul ought to feel itself desolate, and continue in prayer, and learn to fix the eye of faith on the word of the divine sacred Scriptures, as on a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts. (2 Pe 1:19) For the ineffable source from which this lamp borrows its light is the Light which shines in darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not (Jn 1:5)— the Light, in order to see which our hearts must be purified by faith (cf. Acts 15:9); for blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God; (Mt 5:8) and we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (1 Jn 3:2) Then after death shall come the true life, and after desolation the true consolation, that life shall deliver our souls from death, that consolation shall deliver our eyes from tears, and, as follows in the psalm, our feet shall be delivered from falling (cf. Ps 116[114]:8); for there shall be no temptation there.” (Ibid 2.5)

Prayer, which is an exercise of desire in the presence of God, recognizing the misery inherent in this passing life, seeks the happy life from God who alone can give it, in whom it is found.

St. Augustine writes to Proba: “When we cherish uninterrupted desire along with the exercise of faith and hope and charity, we pray always.” (Ibid. 9.18)

What do the two widows in today’s readings teach us in this regard?

The widow of Zarephath shows us faith and hope, the widow with the two coins shows us charity.

The event in Zarephath takes place during the final year of three in which, at the command of the prophet, no rain had fallen. The widow, suffering the drought and famine like everyone else, and even worse because of her poverty, is gathering a few sticks to make a fire.

The condition of the widow speaks of the condition of fallen humanity, deprived of the grace of God, separated thereby from the divine Bridegroom. The lack of rain also speaks of the deprivation of divine grace. (cf. Is 5:6) The famine speaks of the absence of God’s word. Man shall not live on bread alone but one every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. (Mt 4:4, Dt 8:3) This reduces human life to the most abject spiritual poverty, a poverty of soul such as we see all around us in the world today.

Just as the prodigal son begins his return to the father’s house after he recognizes the abject condition to which his sin has reduced him and the greatness of the good that he had lost, so in order for us to turn to God in true prayer, we must first recognize our own spiritual poverty. That is why the gateway to all the beatitudes is: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Mt 5:3)

The widow of Zarephath hears the word of God, pronounced by the prophet, and acts upon it in hope of receiving what the prophet promised, her daily bread, which would sustain her life and the life of her son. Charity was also required because she needed to feed the prophet first.

When we hear this reading and we might think of it as “once and done” but the first day’s miracle did not supply her for the whole year; rather she would have had to repeat the same routine day after day. Every day she started with the same handful of flour and little bit of oil; every day she fed the prophet first and found enough left for herself and her son, and the next day’s supply. Every day she had to live on the prophet’s promise.

For our part, every day we must recognize our own poverty of soul, believe the word of God and put it into practice, placing our hope in God, that he will provided us with what we need each day to advance in the way of eternal salvation. As the widow set the prophet ahead of her own need, so we must put God first, obeying his command, even when it seems that we will lose out by doing so. Indeed, the temptation to think that God’s commandment is unrealistic and impractical is quite pervasive; it certainly lies behind the temptation to use contraception.

Yet, in the midst of her poverty, the widow had the prophet dwelling with her. In the midst of our poverty, God himself dwells in our soul, as in the manger of Bethlehem. Such is the life of faith, the simultaneous experience of our utter weakness and dependence upon God, together with the most extraordinary blessing of his presence. This should make us think of an infant at peace in his mother’s arms. Jesus said, Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Mt 18:3)

To put the word of God into practice is to live the two-fold commandment that we heard last Sunday, to love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves for love of God. That is what is represented by the two small coins of the widow in today’s Gospel. The two small coins went into the temple treasury; that means they were given to the worship of God and the help of the poor.

The coins are small because in the eyes of the world the love of God and love of neighbor do not seem so important; nice maybe, but not the most important things in the world; in the eyes of the world what is important are our accomplishments, our success, not the love with which we do whatever we do, great or small, success or failure. In the eyes of God, our accomplishments and success mean little; are we going to boast of the greatness of our deeds to the one who created the universe? What he cares about is that we respond to him in love, that we give him our all. All our outward accomplishments will pass away, but the temple that God builds in our heart will endure forever.

All this has to do with prayer, the presentation of our desires before God, that he might set them in order and so fashion in us a worthy dwelling place for himself. We often think about prayer as asking God for things: the things we want, or maybe the things we think we need. The Lord’s prayer teaches us the real meaning of prayer, beginning with the recognition of God as our common Father, through Jesus Christ, then letting our desires be trained by the prayer, setting in first place the holiness of his name, the coming of his kingdom, the accomplishment of his will, all before the things we truly need, our daily bread (which includes the bread of God’s word and the bread of Christ’s Body), the forgiveness of sins, victory over temptation, and deliverance from evil, all in order that we might attain to eternal salvation, union with God.

The “Our Father,” taught us by Jesus, constitutes the real law of prayer. St. Augustine writes: “Whatever other words we may say … if we pray rightly … we say nothing but what is already contained in the Lord’s Prayer.” (Ibid 12:22) And this not just for ourselves, because prayer must always be a work of faith, hope, and charity. “These things it is our duty to ask without hesitation for ourselves and for our friends, and for strangers — yea, even for enemies.” (Ibid 12.23)

This life of prayer is born out of the poverty of spirit represented by the widow of Zarephath and bears fruit in the charity shown by the widow in the Gospel, who put all that she had in the temple treasury.

Jesus said: Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treause is, there will be your heart also. (Mt 6:19-21)