Readings: |
1 Kings 17:10-16 Hebrews 9:24-28 Mark 12:38-44 |
Date: |
November 10, 2024, Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B |
"but this widow, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood."
Today's gospel story is, on the surface, a very straightforward story. But like most Gospel stories it invites us to reflect on a much deeper and more complicated reality. I would invite you to reflect with me on the connection between today's story of people contributing to the treasury at the temple in Jerusalem to our participation at Mass, especially during the Offertory.
One of the the things about our Catholic faith that makes it hard to explain or even enter into ourselves is that it is a deep and sometimes complicated reality. One of the aspects that make it so is what is called the 'both/and' of our faith. For example, we believe things such us
I would suggest that the last point is critical to how we enter into our celebration of the Eucharist whenever we come to Mass. Are we coming to offer a small piece of ourselves like the rich people in the Gospel story, or are we coming to offer our whole selves, our whole livelihood, like the widow in the first reading and the one in the Gospel story? Remember as Catholics, we believe that Eucharist is a sacrament of initiation along with Baptism and Confirmation. Being initiated into our faith and incorporated into the Body of Christ by our baptism, and strengthened in that initiation and incorporation by Confirmation is not enough. One of the effects of our fall from grace is that we are continually subject to weakness and temptation. We need to continually renew our faith, our initiation, and our anointing throughout our life or we will gradually lose it. The Catechism (CCC 1254) tells us that "for all the baptized, children or adults, faith must grow after Baptism". This human characteristic is fundamental to who we are: if a married couple do not renew their covenant promise to each other frequently, their marriage will not flourish. Or as I half jokingly have said to some of you, if I am the parent of a teenager and I don't wake up each morning and immediately vow to God, "I am not going to strangle this child today", things can go bad quickly for everyone!
I would suggest that the widows in today's readings give us a very real way to reflect on how we are entering into this celebration of the Eucharist, how we are dying to our false selves more deeply to enter into Christ. As the gifts are being brought up to the altar in procession today, I ask you to imagine that those gifts symbolize you. The bread and wine are the combination of God's gift of wheat and grapes and the work of our hands to transform them into bread and wine. And maybe even more clearly in our day and age, the money offering symbolizes the blood, sweat, and tears we expended to earn that money. Like the offerings of both those widows, that collection basket symbolizes our whole livelihood.
So when the altar is prepared for the consecration by placing the bread and wine on it, I want you to imagine every one here at Mass today, stacked up on that altar like the offerings on the altar at the temple in Jerusalem. Then when the presider says the opening prayer of the Eucharistic prayer, when you hear him say words to the effect:
Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall,
so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.(EP II)
in our minds I suggest we hear him pray: make holy therefore, these gifts: the bread, wine, and each one of these people by sending your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they all may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You see if we think only the bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, we miss a big part of the Mass. We are here not just to be formed more fully into the Body of Christ but to be sent back out into the world when the Mass is ended to be the Body of Christ out in that world, to bring to it that salvation it so eagerly awaits.