The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today resonate with the sense that our efforts to seek truth, beauty, and goodness may have greater effect on events than we may consider.
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| Beautiful harbour |
The reading from the Book of Daniel relates the effect of four young faithful Israelites at the Babylonian Court during a food test.
* [1:8] This defilement: the bread, meat, and wine of the Gentiles were unclean (Hos 9:3; Tb 1:12; Jdt 10:5; 12:1–2) because they might have been offered to idols; and the meat may not have been drained of blood, as Jewish dietary law requires. This test relates to the attempt of Antiochus to force Jews to eat forbidden foods in contempt of their religion (1 Mc 1:62–63; 2 Mc 6:18; 7:1).1
The Book of Daniel provides the response today from the prayer of Azariah in the fiery furnace.
* [3:24–90] These verses are additions to the Aramaic text of Daniel, translated from the Greek form of the book. They were probably first composed in Hebrew or Aramaic, but are no longer extant in the original language. The Roman Catholic Church has always regarded them as part of the canonical Scriptures.2
Jesus is moved by the Widow’s offering in the Gospel of Luke.
* [21:1–4] The widow is another example of the poor ones in this gospel whose detachment from material possessions and dependence on God leads to their blessedness (Lk 6:20). Her simple offering provides a striking contrast to the pride and pretentiousness of the scribes denounced in the preceding section (Lk 20:45–47). The story is taken from Mk 12:41–44.3
Jeanne Schuler sees the youth who resisted and received wisdom more penetrating than the king’s gaudy soothsayers reflected today where, like prophets, steadfast youth shine a light into darkness.
Dreamers—migrants who arrived as children—claim this land that has become their home. They are not in exile. The young fill the streets in many countries to call for justice. Students read “the signs of the time” and, without endless calculation, take action. They push hard to protect the planet, our common home, from catastrophe. We elders, like the magicians of Babylon, say what soothes the powerful. “Be patient. Change takes time. It is too costly. It’s too late already. We’ll ride out the storms.” The abnormal gets christened as normal. How do the prudent make common cause with the prophets? When do I stop covering my ears and listen to the cry: “wake up”?4
Don Schwager quotes “Mercy and compassion are never worthless,” by Leo the Great, 400-461 A.D.
"Although the spite of some people does not grow gentle with any kindness, nevertheless the works of mercy are not fruitless, and kindness never loses what is offered to the ungrateful. May no one, dearly beloved, make themselves strangers to good works. Let no one claim that his poverty scarcely sufficed for himself and could not help another. What is offered from a little is great, and in the scale of divine justice, the quantity of gifts is not measured but the steadfastness of souls. The "widow" in the Gospel put two coins into the "treasury," and this surpassed the gifts of all the rich. No mercy is worthless before God. No compassion is fruitless. He has given different resources to human beings, but he does not ask different affections." (excerpt from Sermon 20.3.1)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 21:1-4 comments that today’s reading is also a good reminder of the sacred obligation we all have to care for those who are lonely and widowed. May we always show them the love and care that they both need and deserve.
Why did this widow catch Jesus’ attention? Perhaps because he was well aware of the plight of widows. In first-century Palestine, a woman who had lost her husband and had no sons to support her could end up defenseless and destitute. Jesus probably suspected that this widow had little to give, so he commended her for offering “her whole livelihood” (Luke 21:4).6
Friar Jude Winkler connects the stories in the Book of Daniel to the time of persecution of the Israelites by the Seleucid Empire. The standards for our generosity are subjective. Friar Jude reminds us that we need to do the best we can with what we have.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares the writing of Charles Eisenstein, a fascinating public speaker, author, and advocate for gift economies.
A world without weapons, without McMansions in sprawling suburbs, without mountains of unnecessary packaging, without giant mechanized monofarms, without energy-hogging big-box stores, without electronic billboards, without endless piles of throw-away junk, without the overconsumption of consumer goods no one really needs is not an impoverished world. I disagree with those environmentalists who say we are going to have to make do with less. In fact, we are going to make do with more: more beauty, more community, more fulfillment, more art, more music, and material objects that are fewer in number but superior in utility and aesthetics. . . .
Part of the healing that a sacred economy represents is the healing of the divide we have created between spirit and matter. In keeping with the sacredness of all things, I advocate an embrace, not an eschewing, of materialism. I think we will love our things more and not less. We will treasure our material possessions, honor where they came from and where they will go. . . . The cheapness of our things is part of their devaluation, casting us into a cheap world where everything is generic and expendable. . . .
Put succinctly, the essential need that goes unmet today, the fundamental need that takes a thousand forms, is the need for the sacred—the experience of uniqueness and connectedness. . . .7
Power pressures people to maintain the status quo. Our efforts to practice an alternate lifestyle may inspire greater change when we are aligned with the Will of God.
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