It seems to me there are at least 3 ways to receive God’s Good News we just heard: 1) to receive it with apathy, as in, “who cares what these people say? 2) to receive it as irrelevant information: what could a widow from 3000 or 2000 years ago teach ME about living in THIS century? 3) to receive it by answering a question: what could God be trying to tell me through the experiences of these women?

If we are open to God’s Holy Spirit touching our hearts & minds today,  let me suggest a few things that might be helpful for us, for now & for the future. For Jesus wouldn’t want us to STOP growing in faith just because we received our Confirmation years ago. No, Jesus encourages us to KEEP growing in faith through the years God gives us on earth.               

My first observation is that these 2 poor & hungry widows have been emptied of earthly things to hang onto, things like their pride & possessions, power & prestige – that’s right – all the things we hear Jesus being tempted to cling to at the beginning of Lent each year. I’m saying that many things in the widows’ lives went wrong, & with their hearts & dreams broken, they CHOSE 2 TRUST God. They also remind us that if someone feels that God has somehow lost their trust, either because of something God did or did not do, it might be time to start trusting God again. That’s right: to give God a second chance!

Then, these 2 poor widows also learned that when you have next to nothing, & you share that little bit with others, God blesses those little gifts & makes them bigger. We might have forgotten about a day when Jesus was preaching to a hungry crowd, as recorded in John’s Gospel. A little boy appeared with a few barley loaves & a few fish: Jesus’ miracle fed THOUSANDS of people’s hungers. You & I can do that on a regular basis, for example, when we donate food to food pantries and soup kitchens, for the benefit of our struggling neighbors. 

And for myself, these poor widows remind me of the capacity for generosity with which God equips ALL of us, through our Baptism & Confirmation. Recall the 1st Beatitude in Chapter 5 of St. Matthew’s Gospel: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Many modern Scripture scholars have helped us understand that what that verse REALLY means is this: “Blessed are those who know they need God first, AND ACT LIKE IT!” 

Yes, those 2 widows GET God: they TRUST God! In our time, I find these 2 widows a breath of fresh air: perhaps they can inspire us to keep growing in faith & trust, if we allow them to be the evangelizers and announcers of God’s Work on earth, in Jesus’ Holy Name. Amen.