The widow’s mite
In villages and towns across
this country, and in other places throughout the world, life will come to a
standstill for just a moment this weekend.
In that silence, a bugle will play a haunting yet familiar tune, loved
ones and companions will be remembered and prayers will be offered. The words of a now famous poem will also be
recited: In Flanders fields the poppies
blow, between the crosses, row on row … Some
of us here in this church today may well have known some of the soldiers who
fought in the first World War: those who
died in the fields of France, and who are buried there. Some of us knew others who returned home,
wounded yet fortunate enough to be reunited with wives and families they had
left behind as they answered their country’s call to enter into battle.
Armistice Day recalls the end
of the First World War, but it also affords us the opportunity to stand still,
even just for a moment and to give thanks for the many thousands of soldiers
who have fought in other conflicts since that time, and for those who stand even
today in the trenches of war-torn countries near and far. Some of these have been fortunate enough to
have come home to families and to loved ones, but war leaves its scars, and
some of those scars run deep.
Perhaps it is not by
coincidence that the first reading we heard today, taken from the first book of
Kings, recounts the encounter of the prophet Elijah with a widow, and that the
gospel passage for today’s Mass places us with Jesus and his disciples as they
witness the silent but poignant actions of yet another widow. The widows spoken of in the scriptures were
quite often women who had little or no voice.
In fact, if you were paying attention, you may have noticed that neither
of these women was even given a name in the written accounts of their
stories. In Jesus’ time, women could be
traded, like chattel. They were owned by
their husbands, and if their husbands died, they were condemned to a life of
begging, basically a little above the social acceptability of a leper.
John McRae’s poem speaks of
young lives lost, of battles bravely fought by men who were sons, brothers,
perhaps even fathers. When they left the
shores of their homelands, they did so believing that they would soon return,
that they would be able to continue their lives where they had left off, but
such was not to be. War is nasty, and
far too often, those who are called upon to serve, those who leave their
homelands full of promise and hope return mere shells of the people they once
were. Worse, the friends and family they
left behind often don’t recognize them when they return. Here, I refer not so much to the outward
appearance, but rather to the inner, for the reality of war can often make
lepers out of all those who are touched by its ravages.
Perhaps this year, we should
all take the time to stand still, to listen for the haunting song of the bugle,
to offer a prayer or two for those we know and those we don’t: the ones who
have fought and the ones who are still fighting to gain us the liberty of
freedom and peace. Perhaps this year, we
should go a step further. I wonder if
the world would be a different place if we dared to see it through Jesus’
eyes. I wonder what might change if we
were to see the men and women who go off to war, and then return … as Jesus saw
the widow in the temple when she deposited her two small copper coins in the treasury. This was a total act of faith.
Soldiers are trained to give
everything they have, even their lives if necessary in order to defend their country
and its ideals. There once was another
who sacrificed himself; his sacrifice is commemorated in our very midst. When soldiers return home, they take a leap
of faith, but in order for this faith to be rewarded, we must be willing to
attend to their needs, like the widow of Zeraphath attended to Elijah’s needs
by providing him with a cake of bread.
She was rewarded for her faith.
Let’s not allow her generosity, and the generosity of our compatriots to
be offered in vain.
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