“He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury; and he saw a poor widow put in two copper coins.” (Luke 21:1).
I recently heard a funny story about a man who decided to stop going to Mass on Sundays… The man decided that he would stop going to Mass on Sundays because he did not gain any visible benefit from going to Mass. The man argued that he had attended almost two thousand Masses during his lifetime and could not remember any homily that he had heard and could not see any impact of those Masses on his daily life.
He told his friend of his decision. And his friend responded… “My wife has been cooking three meals each day for me to feed me for the last thirty-five years. During that time I have eaten over thirty-eight thousand meals that she has prepared for me. I cannot remember any particular meal and cannot see where all those tonnes of consumed food are now.”
And of course, the obvious response, is that without those meals, the man’s life would have ended as he would have starved to death (assuming that he would not cook for himself). And the same applies to the Holy Mass…
Holy Mass is the most important prayer and the most Holy one too… Many many times, when we attend Holy Mass, we are distracted. I am often distracted in the Mass and often cannot recall what the readings were of how the homily went. And yet still, I attend Holy Mass because it is the food of my soul and without it my soul would perish as surely as the man in the story would perish without food…
And there is a certain amount of poverty and humility required to benefit from the Graces on offer in the Holy Mass…
“He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury; and he saw a poor widow put in two copper coins. And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all the living that she had.’” (Luke 21:1-4).
You see, it is very difficult to develop an intimate relationship with God in our spare time. If we are waiting for the moment when we have nothing else to do then it is unlikely that I shall have the time or the inclination to give to God what belongs to God. And when I really stop and think about it, it seems pretty clear to me that I am required to spend some serious time thinking about God and looking to God and focusing on God. I need to make myself like the widow who took everything that she owned and gave it away because she knew that God would provide for her.
And I have been thinking about that today as I eat my food a look for the signs…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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