All she’s Got
The Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time 2021
November 7, 2021
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1 Kings 17:10-16; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44
Widows appear in both readings today because of their vulnerability and the generous offerings them make to demonstrate their faith in God. The first widow bakes her last loaf of bread for the stranger and her dependence upon God’s providence allows her to satisfy the needs of the hungry traveler, who she later comes to realize is God’s prophet. In the Gospel, after calling out the scribes for their hypocrisy, Jesus lauds the widow who gave a disproportionately large sum of money to the Temple Treasury even though it could never compare to the wealth of other benefactors.
As I reflect upon the vulnerable in contemporary society, the proverbial widows who are most at risk, I cannot help but think of the people who gather and live at Mass and Cass in Boston, a public encampment of the homeless and fragile that developed when the Long Island residential facility closed, and people were moved nearer to needed medical and social services. Earlier this week, the tents erected on public lands were removed and the people were displaced as other services were being made available to them. Seldom are solutions for homelessness easy and the root causes are difficult to understand. Embedded in them are mental health issues, economic instability, opioid and drug addiction, alcoholism, and other traumas.
Like many others, I have no adequate solutions to propose. I do want to declare that these people that are suffering and are living on the street belong to us. These individuals are part of our society and are our brothers and sisters. Too often, I hear people reference the mess that is at Mass and Cass, while not even giving “this mess: the dignity of being called a human person. It is important for us to see a vulnerable person’s humanity and to work for solutions that will lessen the economic constraints and other social factors that create homelessness. This is not easy.
Perhaps someone in your family, like mine, had someone who became addicted to opioids or some other drug. Most families have a member who is challenged in some way and requires a special way of relating to the person. It causes heartache and frustration, and each circumstance is unique, and it causes frustration and handwringing. Through it all, each vulnerable person belongs to us. We pray, we seek professional services, we ask for counsel, and while we may through up our hands in exasperation, a part of us never gives up. People respond better to words of understanding and compassion rather than pronouncements on how to live, negative judgments, and statements like “Be strong and make better decisions.” From my personal experience, people have turned their lives around because I tried to understand what they were going through, I asked how they were feeling, I asked what they needed, and I stayed with them through difficult moments. I reassured them that they were good people, and I would continue to walk with them when they failed and when they succeeded. People need a lifeline of hope.
The first widow never gave up even though hunger threatened to take her life. The Gospel widow gave all that she had because she trusted in God. We need to not give up on our fragile brothers and sisters, those at Mass and Cass, and those in our families. Life is hard and we get through this when we stay together. Each small gesture helps. It is our contribution to the Temple Tax. We do our part and we watch how something greater goes on before our eyes, and then we trust more fully in God.
Scripture for Daily Mass
Monday: (Wisdom 1) Love justice, you who judge the earth; think of the Lord in goodness and seek him in integrity of heart; Because he is found by those who test him not, and he manifests himself to those who do not disbelieve him.
Tuesday: (Ezekiel 47) The angel brought me back to the entrance of the temple,
and I saw water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east,
for the façade of the temple was toward the east; the water flowed down from the southern side of the temple, south of the altar.
Wednesday: (Wisdom 6) Hearken, you who are in power over the multitude and lord it over throngs of peoples! Because authority was given you by the Lord and sovereignty by the Most High, who shall probe your works and scrutinize your counsels.
Thursday: (Wisdom 7) In Wisdom is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, Manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain, Not baneful, loving the good, keen, unhampered, beneficent, kindly, Firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful, all-seeing, And pervading all spirits, though they be intelligent, pure and very subtle.
Friday (Wisdom 13) All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan.
Saturday (Romans 18) When peaceful stillness compassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, Your all-powerful word, from heaven’s royal throne
bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land, bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree.
Gospel:
Monday: (Luke 17) And the Apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”
Tuesday: (John 2) He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
Wednesday (Luke 17) As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”
Thursday (Luke 17) The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.
Friday (Luke 17) As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day
that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Saturday (Luke 18) There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’
Saints of the Week
November 9: The dedication of Rome's Lateran Basilica was done by Pope Sylvester I in 324 as the pope's local parish as the bishop of Rome. It was originally called the Most Holy Savior and was built on the property donated by the Laterani family. It is named John Lateran because the baptistry was named after St. John. Throughout the centuries, it was attacked by barbarians, suffered damage from earthquakes and fires, and provided residence for popes. In the 16th century, it went through Baroque renovations.
November 10: Leo the Great, pope and doctor (d. 461) tried to bring peace to warring Roman factions that were leaving Gaul vulnerable to barbarian invasions. As pope, he tried to keep peace again - in particular during his meeting with Attila the Hun, whom he persuaded not to plunder Rome. However, in Attila's next attack three years later, Rome was leveled. Some of Leo's writings on the incarnation were influential in formulating doctrine at the Council of Chalcedon.
November 11: Martin of Tours, bishop (316-397), became an Roman soldier in Hungary because he was born into a military family. After he became a Christian, he left the army because he saw his faith in opposition to military service. He settled in Gaul and began its first monastery. He was proclaimed bishop in 371 and worked to spread the faith in at time of great uncertainty and conflict. He divided sections of his diocese into parishes.
November 12: Josaphat, bishop and martyr (1580-1623) was a Ukranian who entered the Basilian order and was ordained in the Byzantine rite. He was named the archbishop of Polotsk, Russia and attempted to unite the Ukrainian church with Rome. His opponents killed him. He is the first Eastern saint to be formally canonized.
November 13: Francis Xavier Cabrini, religious (1850-1917) was an Italian-born daughter to a Lombardy family of 13 children. She wanted to become a nun, but needed to stay at her parents’ farm because of their poor health. A priest asked her to help work in a girls’ school and she stayed for six years before the bishop asked her to care for girls in poor schools and hospitals. With six sisters, she came to the U.S. in 1889 to work among Italian immigrants. She was the first American citizen to be canonized.
November 13: Stanislaus Kostka, S.J., religious (1550-1568) was a Polish novice who walked from his home to Rome to enter the Jesuits on his 17th birthday. He feared reprisals by his father against the Society in Poland so we went to directly see the Superior General in person. Francis Borgia admitted him after Peter Canisius had him take a month in school before applying for entrance. Because of his early death, Kostka is revered as the patron saint of Jesuit novices.
This Week in Jesuit History
- November 7, 1717. The death of Antonio Baldinucci, an itinerant preacher to the inhabitants of the Italian countryside near Rome.
- November 8, 1769. In Spain, Charles III ordered all of the Society's goods to be sold and sent a peremptory demand to the newly elected Pope Clement XIV to have the Society suppressed.
- November 9, 1646. In England, Fr. Edmund Neville died after nine months imprisonment and ill-treatment. An heir to large estates in Westmoreland, he was educated in the English College and spent forty years working in England.
- November 10, 1549. At Rome, the death of Paul III, to whom the Society owes its first constitution as a religious order.
- November 11, 1676. In St James's Palace, London, Claude la Colombiere preached on All Saints.
- November 12, 1919. Fr. General Ledochowski issued an instruction concerning the use of typewriters. He said that they could be allowed in offices but not in personal rooms, nor should they be carried from one house to another.
- November 13, 1865. The death of James Oliver Van de Velde, second bishop of the city of Chicago from 1848 to 1853.
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