Everything we have and everything we have done has been accomplished by God.
Isaiah 26:12
If everything I am is from our Father, if everything I have is our Father’s why is it so hard to give it back to Him?
This Sunday’s (11.8.09) Gospel reading from Mark speaks of the poor widow who “put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury” because “she contributed all that she had, her whole livelihood.” Mk. 12:38-44. For the widow, God was more important than anything else, including self. The widow understood that detachment from material possessions and dependence on Christ Jesus leads us to blessedness. See Luke 21:1-4 (and NAB note); Matthew 5:3-12.
God has called us to place Him before everything and everyone (Deuteronomy 5:7) and promises that He will give us our heart’s desires (Psalm 37:4). But, as we see in the reading from Luke 14:15-24 (11.3.09) we have many idols, many distractions and many excuses to refuse Jesus’ call. But, the truth remains that Christ Jesus has chosen us, we have not chosen Him (Jn. 15:16). Jesus has done it all for us. He has washed us clean by His personal sacrifice and given us eternal salvation (Hebrews 9:24-28; Jn. 1:29, 35).
The homily today (11.4.09) spoke about taking up our cross and renouncing all our possessions to become Christ Jesus’ disciple (Lk. 14:25-33). We must have a readiness to surrender, to die to self, to take up our cross to reach the end. This is the means to the end we “all want” and desire. It is God we were created for, but it is our idols that prevent us from getting there. So today let us pray for the grace to declare, “the LORD is my shepherd I shall not want or need” (Psalm 23:1). Let us today pray for the grace to receive the grace to live as the widow who wanted nothing but her creator.
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