Witnesses and Widows

The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary offer at least two areas of our lives as Disciples of Christ to consider in reflection. The passage from the Book of Revelation images the gathering of the incredible multiplication of the old Israel and the New Jerusalem a thousand times over as explained by Friar Jude Winkler. This gathering sings a radically new hymn to Jesus the Lamb which trumpets the triumph of Love over totalitarian oppression and the propaganda of the secular age. The nature of Love that conquers all is that it is radically non self centered. It abandons all for the Beloved. It trusts in the Love to sustain. The psalmist sees such people as having clean hands and pure hearts who ascend to the hill of the Lord. Christian teaching has offered the challenge of doing only what gives honour to God. Luke describes Jesus recognition of such love in the action of the widow who gives all she has to live on as her Temple offering. Living on Love is the confidence of the young couple who go forward into life together without the practical necessities the consideration of which too often replaces the radical giving of all to the other with the ‘sensible” utility of needing to take care of myself. Living Love is one reflection for the disciple. The other is to develop the awareness that we are differently gifted and the measure of our response to the life in the New Jerusalem is proportional to the inner spiritual gifts of which we are aware. The pursuit of self knowledge is powerful in people. The knowledge we seek is promised by Paul to the Corinthians as the fruit of our relationship with Jesus when “then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12)