10 He arose, and went to Sarephta. And when he was come to the gate of the city, he saw the widow woman gathering sticks, and he called her, and said to her: Give me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
11 And when she was going to fetch it he called after her, saying: Bring me also, I beseech thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand.
12 And she answered: As the Lord thy God liveth, I have no bread, but only a handful of meal in a pot, and a little oil in a cruse: behold I am gathering two sticks that I may go in and dress it, for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.
13 And Elias said to her: Fear not, but go, and do as thou hast said: but first make for me of the same meal a little hearth cake, and bring it to me: and after make for thyself and thy son.
14 For thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: The pot of meal shall not waste, nor the cruse of oil be diminished, until the day wherein the Lord will give rain upon the face of the earth.
15 She went and did according to the word of Elias: and he ate, and she, and her house: and from that day
16 The pot of meal wasted not, and the cruse of oil was not diminished, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke in the hand of Elias.
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 146: 7, 8-9, 9-10
R. (1b) Praise the Lord, my soul!
7 Who keepeth truth for ever: who executeth judgment for them that suffer wrong: who giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth them that are fettered:
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
8 The Lord enlighteneth the blind. The Lord lifteth up them that are cast down: the Lord loveth the just.
9a The Lord keepeth the strangers.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
9bc He will support the fatherless and the widow: and the ways of sinners he will destroy.
10 The Lord shall reign for ever: thy God, O Sion, unto generation and generation.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
Second Reading: Hebrews 9: 24-28
24 For Jesus is not entered into the holies made with hands, the patterns of the true: but into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us.
25 Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holies, every year with the blood of others:
26 For then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world: but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself.
27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment:
28 So also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many; the second time he shall appear without sin to them that expect him unto salvation.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel: Mark 12: 38-44
38 And he said to them in his doctrine: Beware of the scribes, who love to walk in long robes, and to be saluted in the marketplace,
39 And to sit in the first chairs, in the synagogues, and to have the highest places at suppers:
40 Who devour the houses of widows under the pretence of long prayer: these shall receive greater judgment.
41 And Jesus sitting over against the treasury, beheld how the people cast money into the treasury, and many that were rich cast in much.
42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she cast in two mites, which make a farthing.
43 And calling his disciples together, he saith to them: Amen I say to you, this poor widow hath cast in more than all they who have cast into the treasury.
44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want cast in all she had, even her whole living.
ANGELUS 7 November 2021 Dear Brothers and Sisters, buongiorno!
The scene described in the Gospel of today’s Liturgy takes place inside the Temple of Jerusalem. Jesus looks, he looks at what is happening in this most sacred of places; and he sees how the scribes love to walk around to be seen, greeted and revered, and in order to have the places of honour. And Jesus adds that they “devour widows’ houses and recite long prayers in order to be seen” (cf. Mk 12:40). At the same time, another scene catches his eyes: a poor widow, precisely one of those exploited by the powers that be, puts “everything she had, her whole living” (Mk 12:44) in the Temple treasury. This is what the Gospel says, she puts everything she had to live on in the treasury. The Gospel presents us with this striking contrast: the rich who give from their surplus wealth to make themselves seen, and a poor woman, who without seeming to, offers every little bit she has. Two symbols of human attitudes.
Jesus watches the two scenes. And it is this very verb — “to watch” — that sums up his teaching: “we must watch out for” those who live their faith with duplicity, like the scribes, so as not to become like them; whereas we must “watch” the widow, and take her as a model. Let us reflect on this: to watch out for hypocrites and to watch the poor widow.
First of all, to watch out for hypocrites, that is, to be careful not to base our life on the cult of appearances, the external, and the exaggerated care of one’s own image. And most importantly, to be careful not to bend faith around our own interests. In the name of God, those scribes covered-up their own vainglory, and even worse, they used religion to conduct their own affairs, abusing their authority and exploiting the poor. Here we see that very bad attitude that we still see in many places today, clericalism, this being above the humble, exploiting them, “beating” them, considering oneself perfect. This is the evil of clericalism. This is a warning for all time and for everyone, Church and society: never take advantage of one’s role to crush others, never make money off the backs of the weakest! And to watch out so as not to fall into vanity, so as not to be fixated on appearances, losing what is essential and living superficially. Let us ask ourselves, it will help us: do we want to be appreciated and gratified by what we say and what we do, or rather to be of service to God and neighbour, especially the weakest? Let us watch out for falsehood of the heart, for hypocrisy which is a dangerous illness of the soul! It is a dualism of thought, a dual judgement, as the word itself says: “to judge below”, to appear one way and “hypo”, beneath, to think in a different way. Doubles, people with double souls, a duality of the soul.
--->And in order to heal this illness, Jesus invites us to watch the poor widow. The Lord denounces the exploitation of this woman, who, in making her offering, must return home without even the little she had to live on. How important it is to free the sacred from ties with money! Jesus had already said it elsewhere: you cannot serve two masters. Either you serve God — and we think he will say “or the devil”, no — either God or money. He is a master, and Jesus says we must not serve him. But, at the same time, Jesus praises the fact that this widow puts all she has into the treasury. She has nothing left, but finds her everything in God. She is not afraid of losing the little she has because she trusts in God’s abundance, and God’s abundance multiplies the joy of those who give. This also makes us think of that other widow, the one of the prophet Elijah, who was about to make a flatbread with the last of her flour and the last of her oil; Elijah says to her: “Feed me” and she gives; and the flour never runs out, it is a miracle (cf. 1 Kings 17:9-16). In the face of people’s generosity, the Lord always goes further, is more generous. But it is He, not our avarice. This is why Jesus proposes her as a teacher of faith, this woman: she does not go to the Temple to clear her conscience, she does not pray to make herself seen, she does not show off her faith, but she gives from her heart generously and freely. The sound of her few coins is more beautiful than the grandiose offerings of the rich, since they express a life sincerely dedicated to God, a faith that does not live by appearances but by unconditional trust. Let us learn from her: a faith without external frills, but interiorly sincere; a faith composed of humble love for God and for our brothers and sisters.
And now let us turn to the Virgin Mary, who with a humble and transparent heart made her entire life a gift for God and for his people.
Today our attention is drawn, first of all, to the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews. The Church proposes this New Testament text to us in order to make us meditate on the sublime SACERDOTAL mission of the Word Incarnate. Jesus is the only true and supreme SACERDOT, placed as mediator between God and men. The other SACERDOTES, who came before Him, were a figure of what He would have been. Those who came after Him are ministers of His own SACERDOTIUM, of which they make present again the great and unique SACRIFICE, together with the merits produced by it. And it is precisely of this SACRIFICE that the second reading speaks today, when it says that the SACRIFICE of Jesus was offered once and for all, in the fullness of time, to annul SIN. In that SACRIFICE Jesus is SACERDOTE and victim; He immolated Himself to atone not for His own SINS, which He had never committed, but for ours. Moreover, Jesus did not offer His SACRIFICE in a man-made sanctuary, such as the temple in Jerusalem, but in heaven itself, in the presence of God, to Whom alone Jesus was worthy to present Himself to intercede on our behalf. The singular dignity of the PRIESTHOOD of Jesus has important reflections in the life of the Church. First of all, they shed light on the greatness of the ministerial SACERDOTIUM, which the Church confers on priests and bishops, who prolong and apply in time the saving power of the SACERDOTIUM of Jesus, acting "in persona Christi", that is, as living instruments of the very Person of the Redeemer. Hence the respect and veneration which we must all have for God's ministers; hence also the incentive for young people to respond to the call to sacred ministry which Jesus addresses to many of them. But the PRIESTHOOD of Christ also concerns all the baptized faithful, men and women without distinction. To a certain extent they too are sharers in it, because, united to Him through grace, they derive legitimacy from Him and represent Him whenever they proclaim His Word for them. and raise prayers to God and serve their brothers and sisters with charity. This common PRIESTHOOD of all the faithful must be lived with awareness and responsibility, especially in the commitment to that new evangelization which is required in our time by the proclamation of the Word and the witness of charity. 4. Today, in the Gospel, Jesus denounces the presumptuous and hypocritical behavior of some of the scribes of his time; He exhorts His listeners never to act in order to gain praise and esteem from men or to obtain privileges from important people. . He also exhorts them to avoid that, under the hypocritical ostentation of a religious life, indifference to the POOR, the marginalized, the defenseless and those rejected by society be hidden. The Word of Jesus again reveals that the goodness of works depends not only on the actions themselves, but also and from all on the intention and purity of the heart. In the Temple in Jerusalem, before Jesus and the disciples, the crowd threw coins into the treasury. And many rich people were throwing many coins. A POOR WIDOW came and threw in two coins, a minimal offering. But Jesus commented, "This WOMAN threw more into the treasury than all the others, for they all gave of their surplus, but this one, in her poverty, put in everything she had, everything she had to live on" (Mk 12:43-44). Jesus thus confirms what He has said on many other occasions: that God alone knows what is hidden in the heart of man, that God alone is the judge of human actions, that righteousness and generosity of life have their roots in the heart, in the depths of the conscience, and that what counts before God is sincerity and truth, not vain appearances .... Do not cease to trust in God, who is rich in mercy and goodness, in him who - as the Responsorial Psalm says - "restores sight to the blind, / raises up the fallen, / loves the just, / protects the stranger". Amen
FAUSTI - "Out of her misery she threw everything she had, all that was necessary for her life," Jesus says of the widow. By now He is about to leave, but He leaves us a legacy of a discreet teacher, who continues His lesson in silence. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. The passage is a counterpoint: we must beware from the scribes, the false teachers that we love so much, and look at the widow, the true teacher that we prefer to ignore. The first ones have the cult of their own image: they love themselves with all their heart, and they use everything and everyone, even the Lord and His Word to excel. They are the successful prototype of the fundamental sin that is in the heart of every man: protagonism, which puts the ego in the place of God. The poor widow, on the other hand, alone and unnoticed, poor and humble, "throws" her whole life away: she is like Jesus, who made Himself the last of all, and put His Life at the service of all. She has His same Spirit, she is the living Gospel, in which we can always see the Face of our Master. From her the good fragrance of Christ spreads, for the life of the world (2 Cor 2:14). Jesus' first prodigious action was the healing of Peter's mother-in-law so that she could serve (1:29-31). His last instruction before the eschatological discourse, almost His Testament, is to point us to that widow. Without her knowing it, Jesus puts her in His place, so that He can prolong His presence in time. She gives everything for the temple, which will soon be destroyed. In reality, the Temple is Jesus Himself, who interprets her gesture as a concrete answer to His last question. He is the Lord; faith is to recognize Him as such, loving Him with all one's life, because He first loved me with all His Life. But this answer can mature only on the tree of the Cross. This widow is like its anticipated fruit. The barren and dry fig tree begins to give its first fruits.
Jesus shows us the way to recognize Him as Lord and to respond to His previous question: just as this widow threw everything she had into the treasure of the temple, we throw our lives into it and entrust them to Him. The disciple is represented by this woman, who acts like her Lord, doing for Him what He has done for her. She is the perfect fulfillment of the Gospel.
First Reading: First Kings 17: 10-16
RispondiElimina10 He arose, and went to Sarephta. And when he was come to the gate of the city, he saw the widow woman gathering sticks, and he called her, and said to her: Give me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
11 And when she was going to fetch it he called after her, saying: Bring me also, I beseech thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand.
12 And she answered: As the Lord thy God liveth, I have no bread, but only a handful of meal in a pot, and a little oil in a cruse: behold I am gathering two sticks that I may go in and dress it, for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.
13 And Elias said to her: Fear not, but go, and do as thou hast said: but first make for me of the same meal a little hearth cake, and bring it to me: and after make for thyself and thy son.
14 For thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: The pot of meal shall not waste, nor the cruse of oil be diminished, until the day wherein the Lord will give rain upon the face of the earth.
15 She went and did according to the word of Elias: and he ate, and she, and her house: and from that day
16 The pot of meal wasted not, and the cruse of oil was not diminished, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke in the hand of Elias.
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 146: 7, 8-9, 9-10
R. (1b) Praise the Lord, my soul!
7 Who keepeth truth for ever: who executeth judgment for them that suffer wrong: who giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth them that are fettered:
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
8 The Lord enlighteneth the blind. The Lord lifteth up them that are cast down: the Lord loveth the just.
9a The Lord keepeth the strangers.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
9bc He will support the fatherless and the widow: and the ways of sinners he will destroy.
10 The Lord shall reign for ever: thy God, O Sion, unto generation and generation.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
Second Reading: Hebrews 9: 24-28
24 For Jesus is not entered into the holies made with hands, the patterns of the true: but into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us.
25 Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holies, every year with the blood of others:
26 For then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world: but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself.
27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment:
28 So also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many; the second time he shall appear without sin to them that expect him unto salvation.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel: Mark 12: 38-44
38 And he said to them in his doctrine: Beware of the scribes, who love to walk in long robes, and to be saluted in the marketplace,
39 And to sit in the first chairs, in the synagogues, and to have the highest places at suppers:
40 Who devour the houses of widows under the pretence of long prayer: these shall receive greater judgment.
41 And Jesus sitting over against the treasury, beheld how the people cast money into the treasury, and many that were rich cast in much.
42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she cast in two mites, which make a farthing.
43 And calling his disciples together, he saith to them: Amen I say to you, this poor widow hath cast in more than all they who have cast into the treasury.
44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want cast in all she had, even her whole living.
POPE FRANCIS
RispondiEliminaANGELUS 7 November 2021
Dear Brothers and Sisters, buongiorno!
The scene described in the Gospel of today’s Liturgy takes place inside the Temple of Jerusalem. Jesus looks, he looks at what is happening in this most sacred of places; and he sees how the scribes love to walk around to be seen, greeted and revered, and in order to have the places of honour. And Jesus adds that they “devour widows’ houses and recite long prayers in order to be seen” (cf. Mk 12:40). At the same time, another scene catches his eyes: a poor widow, precisely one of those exploited by the powers that be, puts “everything she had, her whole living” (Mk 12:44) in the Temple treasury. This is what the Gospel says, she puts everything she had to live on in the treasury. The Gospel presents us with this striking contrast: the rich who give from their surplus wealth to make themselves seen, and a poor woman, who without seeming to, offers every little bit she has. Two symbols of human attitudes.
Jesus watches the two scenes. And it is this very verb — “to watch” — that sums up his teaching: “we must watch out for” those who live their faith with duplicity, like the scribes, so as not to become like them; whereas we must “watch” the widow, and take her as a model. Let us reflect on this: to watch out for hypocrites and to watch the poor widow.
First of all, to watch out for hypocrites, that is, to be careful not to base our life on the cult of appearances, the external, and the exaggerated care of one’s own image. And most importantly, to be careful not to bend faith around our own interests. In the name of God, those scribes covered-up their own vainglory, and even worse, they used religion to conduct their own affairs, abusing their authority and exploiting the poor. Here we see that very bad attitude that we still see in many places today, clericalism, this being above the humble, exploiting them, “beating” them, considering oneself perfect. This is the evil of clericalism. This is a warning for all time and for everyone, Church and society: never take advantage of one’s role to crush others, never make money off the backs of the weakest! And to watch out so as not to fall into vanity, so as not to be fixated on appearances, losing what is essential and living superficially. Let us ask ourselves, it will help us: do we want to be appreciated and gratified by what we say and what we do, or rather to be of service to God and neighbour, especially the weakest? Let us watch out for falsehood of the heart, for hypocrisy which is a dangerous illness of the soul! It is a dualism of thought, a dual judgement, as the word itself says: “to judge below”, to appear one way and “hypo”, beneath, to think in a different way. Doubles, people with double souls, a duality of the soul.
--->And in order to heal this illness, Jesus invites us to watch the poor widow. The Lord denounces the exploitation of this woman, who, in making her offering, must return home without even the little she had to live on. How important it is to free the sacred from ties with money! Jesus had already said it elsewhere: you cannot serve two masters. Either you serve God — and we think he will say “or the devil”, no — either God or money. He is a master, and Jesus says we must not serve him. But, at the same time, Jesus praises the fact that this widow puts all she has into the treasury. She has nothing left, but finds her everything in God. She is not afraid of losing the little she has because she trusts in God’s abundance, and God’s abundance multiplies the joy of those who give. This also makes us think of that other widow, the one of the prophet Elijah, who was about to make a flatbread with the last of her flour and the last of her oil; Elijah says to her: “Feed me” and she gives; and the flour never runs out, it is a miracle (cf. 1 Kings 17:9-16). In the face of people’s generosity, the Lord always goes further, is more generous. But it is He, not our avarice. This is why Jesus proposes her as a teacher of faith, this woman: she does not go to the Temple to clear her conscience, she does not pray to make herself seen, she does not show off her faith, but she gives from her heart generously and freely. The sound of her few coins is more beautiful than the grandiose offerings of the rich, since they express a life sincerely dedicated to God, a faith that does not live by appearances but by unconditional trust. Let us learn from her: a faith without external frills, but interiorly sincere; a faith composed of humble love for God and for our brothers and sisters.
EliminaAnd now let us turn to the Virgin Mary, who with a humble and transparent heart made her entire life a gift for God and for his people.
JOHN PAUL II - Sunday, 10 November 1991
RispondiEliminaToday our attention is drawn, first of all, to the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews. The Church proposes this New Testament text to us in order to make us meditate on the sublime SACERDOTAL mission of the Word Incarnate. Jesus is the only true and supreme SACERDOT, placed as mediator between God and men. The other SACERDOTES, who came before Him, were a figure of what He would have been. Those who came after Him are ministers of His own SACERDOTIUM, of which they make present again the great and unique SACRIFICE, together with the merits produced by it.
And it is precisely of this SACRIFICE that the second reading speaks today, when it says that the SACRIFICE of Jesus was offered once and for all, in the fullness of time, to annul SIN. In that SACRIFICE Jesus is SACERDOTE and victim; He immolated Himself to atone not for His own SINS, which He had never committed, but for ours. Moreover, Jesus did not offer His SACRIFICE in a man-made sanctuary, such as the temple in Jerusalem, but in heaven itself, in the presence of God, to Whom alone Jesus was worthy to present Himself to intercede on our behalf.
The singular dignity of the PRIESTHOOD of Jesus has important reflections in the life of the Church. First of all, they shed light on the greatness of the ministerial SACERDOTIUM, which the Church confers on priests and bishops, who prolong and apply in time the saving power of the SACERDOTIUM of Jesus, acting "in persona Christi", that is, as living instruments of the very Person of the Redeemer. Hence the respect and veneration which we must all have for God's ministers; hence also the incentive for young people to respond to the call to sacred ministry which Jesus addresses to many of them.
But the PRIESTHOOD of Christ also concerns all the baptized faithful, men and women without distinction. To a certain extent they too are sharers in it, because, united to Him through grace, they derive legitimacy from Him and represent Him whenever they proclaim His Word for them.
and raise prayers to God and serve their brothers and sisters with charity.
This common PRIESTHOOD of all the faithful must be lived with awareness and responsibility, especially in the commitment to that new evangelization which is required in our time by the proclamation of the Word and the witness of charity.
4. Today, in the Gospel, Jesus denounces the presumptuous and hypocritical behavior of some of the scribes of his time; He exhorts His listeners never to act in order to gain praise and esteem from men or to obtain privileges from important people. . He also exhorts them to avoid that, under the hypocritical ostentation of a religious life, indifference to the POOR, the marginalized, the defenseless and those rejected by society be hidden.
The Word of Jesus again reveals that the goodness of works depends not only on the actions themselves, but also and from all on the intention and purity of the heart.
In the Temple in Jerusalem, before Jesus and the disciples, the crowd threw coins into the treasury. And many rich people were throwing many coins.
A POOR WIDOW came and threw in two coins, a minimal offering. But Jesus commented, "This WOMAN threw more into the treasury than all the others, for they all gave of their surplus, but this one, in her poverty, put in everything she had, everything she had to live on" (Mk 12:43-44).
Jesus thus confirms what He has said on many other occasions: that God alone knows what is hidden in the heart of man, that God alone is the judge of human actions, that righteousness and generosity of life have their roots in the heart, in the depths of the conscience, and that what counts before God is sincerity and truth, not vain appearances .... Do not cease to trust in God, who is rich in mercy and goodness, in him who - as the Responsorial Psalm says - "restores sight to the blind, / raises up the fallen, / loves the just, / protects the stranger". Amen
FAUSTI - "Out of her misery she threw everything she had, all that was necessary for her life," Jesus says of the widow.
RispondiEliminaBy now He is about to leave, but He leaves us a legacy of a discreet teacher, who continues His lesson in silence. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
The passage is a counterpoint: we must beware from the scribes, the false teachers that we love so much, and look at the widow, the true teacher that we prefer to ignore.
The first ones have the cult of their own image: they love themselves with all their heart, and they use everything and everyone, even the Lord and His Word to excel.
They are the successful prototype of the fundamental sin that is in the heart of every man: protagonism, which puts the ego in the place of God.
The poor widow, on the other hand, alone and unnoticed, poor and humble, "throws" her whole life away: she is like Jesus, who made Himself the last of all, and put His Life at the service of all.
She has His same Spirit, she is the living Gospel, in which we can always see the Face of our Master. From her the good fragrance of Christ spreads, for the life of the world (2 Cor 2:14).
Jesus' first prodigious action was the healing of Peter's mother-in-law so that she could serve (1:29-31). His last instruction before the eschatological discourse, almost His Testament, is to point us to that widow.
Without her knowing it, Jesus puts her in His place, so that He can prolong His presence in time.
She gives everything for the temple, which will soon be destroyed. In reality, the Temple is Jesus Himself, who interprets her gesture as a concrete answer to His last question. He is the Lord; faith is to recognize Him as such, loving Him with all one's life, because He first loved me with all His Life.
But this answer can mature only on the tree of the Cross.
This widow is like its anticipated fruit. The barren and dry fig tree begins to give its first fruits.
Jesus shows us the way to recognize Him as Lord and to respond to His previous question: just as this widow threw everything she had into the treasure of the temple, we throw our lives into it and entrust them to Him.
The disciple is represented by this woman, who acts like her Lord, doing for Him what He has done for her. She is the perfect fulfillment of the Gospel.