The Readings of today help us develop faith and trust, love and gratitude. As we inch closer to Advent, let us cleanse our hearts and minds that we may worthily receive the Divine Babe.
In the First Reading (1 Kings 17: 10-16), we learn about a famine that devastated Israel under king Ahab. Under these trying circumstances, a poor widow and her son received the prophet Elijah into their lowly home in Zarephath, a town on the Mediterranean coast. Their supply of flour and oil was at its fag end, yet miraculously it was not depleted until the famine itself came to an end. Truly, the needy are sometimes the more generous and welcoming.
Israel’s dry spell was a punishment for idolatry prevalent in the kingdom, but soon God turned things around. When the prophets of Baal prayed for rain, there was scorching sun; but after Elijah had restored Yahweh’s altar and offered sacrifice and prayers, it began to pour. This signalled the power of the true God and the end of the famine.
The miraculous episode is reminiscent of the wonders that St Joseph Vaz worked in Sri Lanka. After efforts by the kingdom’s false prophets had come to nought, the Goan apostle prayed for rain at an altar erected in a public square. Rain bucketed down, leaving only the area around the priest and the altar dry! The miracle was a defining moment for the Vazian apostolate: many embraced Catholicism and those that had fallen by the wayside returned to the faith.
In our own times, look at how the world went berserk in the days of Covid-19 even while self-proclaimed saviours became the new idols. What state of mind will we find ourselves in when the real D-day comes? Will we be prepared to welcome our Saviour? Therefore, come what may, we must swear our allegiance to Him right away, so that at the eleventh hour there is no vacillation nor succumbing to mental or physical vaccination.
It is such false prophets that Jesus in the Gospel (Mk 12: 38-44) railed against: ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes, and to have salutations in the market places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at feasts.’ They devour widows’ houses and for a pretence make long prayers. We could well add that then, instead of being run into jail, they are run into Parliament!
Such are the ways of the world, which the kingdom of Heaven will greatly condemn. The high-handed will be shown the door and the poor shall inherit the kingdom; those who mourn now shall be comforted, and those who weep, laugh. The same with the prophets… What prophet worth the salt has not been reviled, hated and excluded from his own land, by his own people, precisely for standing up and speaking up for God? He will be awarded the crown of righteousness.
Meanwhile, in the Gospel text too, there appears a poor widow. Like her Old Testament counterpart, who through her destitution trusted in the Lord, she too in her deprivation gave Him everything she had. And Jesus, seated opposite the treasury and watching people putting in their gifts, quickly made a distinction between those who had comfortably contributed out of their abundance and the poor widow who even out of her poverty put in two copper coins, her whole living!
It is not that Jesus summarily condemns the rich and commends the poor. In fact, it is not persons but faulty attitudes and acts that he censures. Those with wealth and/or intellect, how well do they serve God? Historically, we have umpteen examples of individuals, families, even countries, that have prioritised and served God in all things.
On the other hand, there are those who receive but never repay. ‘Kam zalem, voiz melo’ is a saying that comes promptly to mind: God is taken for granted. We get so puffed with pride that we think we can have it our way. No wonder, Jesus noted that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
The way out, then, is to be always in awe of God and to have a heart filled with love and gratitude, so we can sing with the Psalmist: ‘My soul, give praise to the Lord.’
Finally, the Second Reading (Heb. 9: 24-28) presents us the Christ who ‘has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.’ A solemn and beautiful promise wraps it up, saying that ‘Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him.’
Let us therefore do everything to be counted among those who await His Second Coming. Nothing compares to Him and to the time when the Son of Man will come, at an hour we do not expect. We have to be in a state of readiness, irrespective of our troubles. We have to trust in Him and be thankful at all times.
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