The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Friday, June 16, 2023

1 John 4, 7–16

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.

This solemnity was first instituted as a local feast in France, in 1670.  As devotion to the Sacred Heart spread over the years, the feast was further instituted in other European countries.  Finally, in 1856, Pope Prius IX ordered that the feast be celebrated throughout the Church on the Friday within the octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi, meaning the Friday after the Sunday that followed the traditional time of Corpus Christi on the Thursday after Holy Trinity Sunday.  The feast celebrates the love of God-made-man for us, a love that led him to lay down his life for us on the Cross.  There was some debate in the seventeenth century and even afterwards of whether the feast celebrated the Lord’s actual heart, at that time still thought to be the organ that housed the mind, but this was deemed to literal of an interpretation of the intention for the feast.  While the meditation on the love of the Son of God made incarnate for us has always had an important place in Christian devotion, it was not until the preaching of St. John Eudes and the disclosure of the visions received by St. Margaret Mary Alocoque that desire for a feast honoring it began.  Many pious authors have written books and tracts on the Sacred Heard and on devotion to it.  One of the best is an encyclical on the subject by Prius XII entitled Haurietis Aquas (Isaiah 12, 3: “You shall draw water”), which is available on the internet.

“Let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.”  St. John, the beloved disciple, exhorts the members of his flock to love one another not for some abstract principle but because this fraternal charity enables a person to share in the divine love.  We ought to love one another on the principle that God loves us all and so we should love those whom God loves.  But this love of neighbor serves as a prerequisite for knowing the love of God, for intimacy with him.  The truth of this is shown in John’s next statement: “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.”  That is, God not only loves, but he is love.  This helps us to understand something of the majesty and boundlessness of his love.  He does not love as we do, for he is love and his love for us is the full expression and sharing of himself.  We can love, but his love far surpasses ours because we are not love.  It is possible for a human not to love, but it is impossible for God not to love — it is his nature.  But by his grace we can love our neighbors as ourselves and so share in his love.

“In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.”  God revealed his love for us by creating the human race and by leading his chosen people out of slavery in Egypt to life in the Promised Land, but his sending his only Som into the world to die for our salvation goes far beyond these other signs of his love.  It is like the brightness of the sun obscuring the stars in the sky.  “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”  We can understand this verse in two ways.  First, that God’s love precedes ours in time and intensity, and is the cause of ours; second, that God’s love so surpasses ours that by comparison it is as though we did not love him at all, no matter how much we might do so.  Therefore, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another.”  If we knew how much God loves our neighbors, how greatly we would love them too!  And if we knew how much he loves us, how greatly we would love ourselves!  

“No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.”  The ancients used the verb to see in the two basic ways that we do in English today: as seeing with our eyes, and seeing with our minds, as when we are apprised of a fact and we respond, “I see.”  Here, John speaks of a “seeing” of God that implies having intimate knowledge of him, of comprehending him.  But this is impossible for us.  Only God can comprehend himself.  And for this reason, John says, “No one has ever seen God.”  However, if we love one another, then he will make his home in our hearts (cf. John 14, 23).  We will know him in a way in which only the elect can know him.  His love is brought to “perfection” in us — that is, to completion, meaning our perfection so that we might enter heaven st the end of our lives.

“This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit.”  We receive his Spirit in the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation.  His Spirit changes us through grace, making us proper temples for him.  

“Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.”  John testifies that he, a most reliable witness, and known to his hearers, knows that the Father sent his Son into the world to save it.  They can therefore acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God.  And this act of faith makes a person capable of receiving God in him so as to know him and love him.  “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.”  The Lord Jesus gradually revealed the fact and the extent of the Father’s love which is infinite, without condition and without end for he is love.  The love of our neighbor whom we can see leads us to the knowledge and experience of the God whom we cannot, and this love is abiding and does not fade.

To look upon the crucifix is to be reminded of the intense and lasting love God has for us, and to meditate upon the Passion renews and strengthens our our experience of his love.  It is not static and fixed but is as a geyser rushing out of the earth, or like blood gushing out of an artery.

 Thursday in the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 15, 2023

Matthew 5, 20-26

Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”

““I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.”  In the verses immediately preceding today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord had shown his scorn for the Scribes and Pharisees who had substituted their interpretation of the Law for the commandments of the Law itself: “He therefore that shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.”  Now the Lord admonishes his followers that at the least, their righteousness should surpass that of the Scribes and Pharisees, and, with an eye to the context, that it might not be hard for them to do this.  

“Whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”  The Greek word translated here as “is angry” also has the sense of “to provoke”, as in Whoever provokes his brother [to wrath].  More commonly, it means “to be enraged”.  The same word is used in the Lord’s Parable of the Marriage Feast, when the invited guests not only refused to attend but “laid hands on his servants and, having treated them contumeliously, put them to death”.  When the king heard what had been done, “he was angry: and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers and burnt their city” (Matthew 22, 6-7).  And so the Lord does not mean some minor irritation, but  rage and wrath. “Whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.”  Raqa is an Aramaic word that means “worthless” or “empty”.  The Lord seems to tie the prohibition against calling someone raqa or “fool” with giving way to wrath so that this too derives from the commandment against murder.

“Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”  The Lord teaches that a condition for offering a gift to the Lord is freedom from serious sin, such as that of anger against a person, for, as St. John asks, “How can he love God whom he does not see when he does not love his brother whom he does see?” (1 John 4, 20).  This reference to the altar implies that the worship in the Temple is continuing in the days when Matthew wrote his Gospel, for if he had been writing his Gospel after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D., the detail would have been irrelevant from a contemporary point of view and Matthew would hardly have included this saying of the Lord’s.

“Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him.”  The Lord speaks both of an earthly opponent and of a person’s own conscience.  That is, make peace now with all those against whom you have sinned, for time is of the essence: “otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.”  The sin which is not atoned for will stand as though a plaintiff before a judge.  Likewise, a person’s conscience will accuse him of the sin.  The “judge” here is the Lord.  Finding the accused guilty, the Lord hands the sinner to the guard — an angel — who will put the person into prison: a good angel will take the sinner to purgatory if the sin was not malicious, or a wicked angel will take the sinner into hell if it was.  In purgatory, the sinner can atone for the sin that is not mortal — he can pay the last penny; but this is not true in hell, for the debt is impossibly large.  

 Wednesday in the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 14, 2023

Matthew 5, 17-19

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the Law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”

The Pharisees regularly accused the Lord of breaking the Sabbath and the rules on purification, though he rigorously obeyed them and only ignored their baseless interpretations of the Law.  In these words, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets”, he indicates that he has actually been accused of going further than violating the Law itself, and that he meant to sweep away Judaism altogether.  This, again, would have come from the Pharisees.  The Lord defends himself from this false charge and declares: “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”  That is, to “fill up” what was lacking in the original Law.  The original Law was such that it could be obeyed without the help of grace, while a fulfilled Law, bringing about sanctity, could be obeyed with the help of the grace the Lord brought to the earth and bestows on his people.  And so, the law against murder becomes the law against rage and unrighteous anger against one’s neighbor; and the law against adultery becomes the law against impure thoughts.  There are those today who want to think that the Lord loosened the excessive moral code of the Pharisees.  In fact, the Lord “tightens” the moral code and insists: “Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the Law.”  That is, the Law, as he renews it, remains intact until the end of the world.  “Until all things have taken place.”  The Lord may mean here that after his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, the laws regarding the worship of God in the Temple  will “pass”, as signified by the tearing of the veil in the sanctuary (cf. Matthew 27, 51).  The true worship of God is now the Holy Mass, which the Lord established at the Last Supper.  Or, the Lord may mean that the moral code would last until the end of the world with the great judgment and the condemnation of the wicked, when it’s purpose will have been accomplished.

“Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.”  The Lord here is speaking of the Pharisees.  For instance, the Lord condemned their commandment regarding qorban because it conflicted with the commandment regarding the honoring of father and mother (cf. Matthew 15, 3-6).  “Will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven”: a manner of speaking to say that they will not be included in the Kingdom of heaven.  “But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”  The Apostles will take their place on the seats of Moses vacated by the usurping Pharisees and teach not according to their interpretations but according to the word Jesus gave them (cf. Matthew 23, 2).  

The Lord Jesus is the great Lawgiver who provides his faithful with not only the guides by which to attain heaven but also the grace necessary to abide by these guides and so to enter a Kingdom where we will know the fullness of love.

 Tuesday in the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 13, 2023

Matthew 5, 13-16

Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lamp stand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”

The Lord Jesus tells his disciples that they are “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”: he does not say that they will be these things in the future but that they are so now.  At this stage of his training and forming they are still far from the readiness for missionary work they will possess after receiving the Holy Spirit, but even as he spoke to them they were already salt and light for a fallen world that could not help itself.  

Though the world seems awash in darkness now with forms of behavior deemed immoral, vile, and even worthy of death in times past now raised to legality and acceptance by large swaths of the population, and with genocide on scales hardly imagined in the days of the ancient conquerors, the Church and her saints stand as beams of light that still guide those who yearn for truth leading to her holy Source.  In contrast, before the age of grace and the coming of the Lord Jesus, the world lay in even more severe shadows, without hope of any kind for the great majority of earth’s peoples.  We get glimpses of this in verses in the Scriptures: “(D-R): The fool said in his heart: ‘There is no God.’  They are corrupted, and become abominable in iniquities: there is none that does good. God looked down from heaven on the children of men: to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. All have gone aside, they are become unprofitable together, there is none that does good, no not one (Psalm 53, 1-4).  And, “How long shall sinners, O Lord: how long shall sinners glory? Shall they utter, and speak iniquity: shall all speak who work injustice? Your people, O Lord, they have brought low: and they have afflicted your inheritance. They have slain the widow and the stranger: and they have murdered the fatherless” (Psalm 93, 3-6).  The Christian hopes in God and rejoices even in bad times, but for the one who does not know God and believes that this life is all there is, the loss of youth, health, and wealth is utterly catastrophic.

Though we be not perfect yet, we believe in God and hope for heaven.  We are called by Jesus now, just as we are, to be salt and light to those who are in danger of the rot of sin and hopelessness and the darkness of ignorance and superstition.

 Monday in the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 12, 2023

Matthew 5, 1-12

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.  Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

The Old Testament contains many “beatitudes”, sayings that begin with the word we translate into English as “blessed” and usually understand in the supernatural sense.  For instance, Psalm 1, 1: “Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence”, and,  Psalm 31, 1-2: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.  Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” There are many others besides.  We can read these as telling us what particular behavior God prefers and will reward.  We can also read them as statements defining the true lover of God.

The Lord’s Beatitudes recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew can be read in this way as well.  The true Christian is “poor in spirit”.  He is blessed in this poorness  of spirit rather than wretched, and to him belongs the Kingdom of heaven.  He is poor on spirit in that he has followed the words of Christ: “If you will be perfect, go sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me” (Matthew 19, 21); or, in the sense of Psalm 51, 19: “A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise.”  We can understand “poor in spirit” in both senses: the one whose heart in contrite and humble, realizing that his salvation comes from God alone, gives up his previous life in order to follow Christ.  We can understand this very literally, with St. Matthew as our example; or, for those called to remain in the world, in the words of St. Paul: “The time is short. It remains, that they who have wives be as if they had none:  And they that weep, as though they wept not: and those who rejoice, as if they rejoiced not: and those who buy as if they possessed not: And those that use this world, as if they used it not” (1 Corinthians 7, 29-31).

Similarly, “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.”  The true Christian mourns for his sins and is meek, though resolute, as Moses was called “a man exceeding meek above all men that dwelt upon earth” (Numbers 12, 3) and yet followed God’s commands, leading the Hebrews to the Promised Land despite all their rebellions.  The Christian, mourning his sins and behaving with meekness, will be comforted and will inherit the land — a place in heaven.  The Christian is also blessed in his “hunger and thirst for righteousness”, and in the world to come for he will be “satisfied”. The Christian is a merciful person, and so he “will be shown mercy”. The Christian is one who is “clean of heart”, which makes him capable of seeing God. This is true cleanness, not achieved by multiple daily washings of the hands as the Pharisees demanded but through the washings of vigilance and penance.  The Christian is a peacemaker, and in this way he will become a child of God.

The Christian is the one who is “persecuted for the sake of righteousness”, that is, for living an upright life.  He is criticized and insulted  for not joining in the wicked behavior of those who do not belong to Christ.  His righteousness will bring him the Kingdom of heaven.  The Christian is also insulted and persecuted and slandered because of his belief in Jesus Christ.  He is blessed in this and rejoices that he has been chosen to suffer for him, as did the Apostles: “And they indeed went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus” (Acts of the Apostles 5, 41).

These, then are the marks of the true follower of the Lord Jesus which we should also show so that, distinguished by our mercy and meekness and the other virtues all around us may know we are Christians and may desire to serve the Lord as well.

 The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, Sunday, June 11, 2023

John 6, 51–58

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”  The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ was instituted by Pope Urban IV in 1264.  For some years prior to that the feast was localized in parishes and dioceses in Central Europe.  The institution of the feast followed a short period of controversy among theologians as to what exactly happened at the moment of the consecration of the bread and wine at Holy Mass.  This controversy led to the devising of the term “transubstantiation”, which has been used ever since.  Originally, this solemnity was celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, but this region’s bishops have decided it should be celebrated on the Sunday after Trinity Sunday.  Celebrating this feast on a Thursday links it with the celebration of Holy Thursday during Holy Week, during which the Lord Jesus instituted the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Mass.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.”  The Lord Jesus Christ makes this declaration following the miracle in which he fed a crowd of five thousand from a few loaves of bread and fish.  He calls himself “the living bread”.  This contrasts with manna, which was not living.  But if the manna preserved the lives of the Israelites during their forty years in the wilderness, then “living” bread should do far more than that.  Jesus calls himself “the living bread”: Moses never called himself “manna”, so Jesus is claiming a greatness beyond that of Moses.  Jesus further identifies himself as the living bread “that came down from heaven”.  So what is this bread, if it is not the manna that came down from heaven?  Jesus says that it is “the bread that I will give [which] is my flesh for the life of the world.  Thus, Jesus teaches that he has come down from heaven, that he possesses true flesh, and that he will offer his flesh for the life of the world — its redemption for sin.  He will trade his life for its.

His hearers quarrel among themselves rather than ask Jesus what he means: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  They take very literally the Lord’s words, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  They concentrate on the eating rather than on the receiving of eternal life.  But their arguing among themselves as though they had the wisdom to understand him which made asking him directly unnecessary.  Since they do not ask, the Lord does not explain, but repeats with greater emphasis: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”  

Jesus says to them: “My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”  It is as though he were prompting them to ask questions, but they do not.  His flesh and blood are “true” food and drink just as his flesh is “living” bread.  They are true food and drink in that what we eat and drink is modeled in its creation after the Lord’s Body and Blood.  The food and drink we eat and drink is based on and to some extent participates in the Body and Blood of our Lord.  His Flesh and Blood is not like our ordinary human food; our human food is like his Flesh and Blood.  “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”  Jesus here teaches the doctrine of Holy Communion.  Unlike ordinary human food, the true food the Lord offers us, his own Body and Blood, puts us in communion with him whose it is.  That is, in such a unity that he shares his divine life, which he has from the Father, with us: “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”

“This is the bread that came down from heaven.”  We should think of Jesus gesturing to himself with his hand, here.  “Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  The manna, he is saying, was a sign of the true bread that would come down from heaven, centuries later, for the redemption of the world.  

Those who heard the Lord on this occasion struggled to understand and believe because they were convinced that he was the son of David who would lead them to victory over the Romans.  This was what the Pharisees had told them the Messiah would do.  The Messiah was not supposed to give his life for the life of the world, he was not supposed to give his flesh and blood as food and drink to those who wanted to live forever.  The Lord challenges their preconceptions of the Messiah, which the people believed him to be, but they harden their hearts and will not accept a different vision, even one offered by the Messiah himself.  

As we celebrate this great solemnity, let us rejoice in the food and drink — which is the true food and drink — which the Lord Jesus gives us so freely, and which enables us to share in his divine life.

 Saturday in the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time, June 20, 2023

Mark 12, 38-44

In the course of his teaching Jesus said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets. They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe condemnation.”  He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

St. Mark continues to present the teachings of Jesus in the Temple courtyard in the days before his Passion and Death.

“Beware of the scribes.”  The Greek word translated here as “beware” has the primary meanings of “to look” or “to be aware of”.  In this way the Lord is not warning the crowd of the scribes but pointing them out for who they were.  The scribes were a fairly unpopular group of people just as lawyers are today and have been through the ages.  The resentment against them came from the fact that they possessed skills necessary for the conduct of civic life, that they enriched themselves thereby, and that they looked down upon everyone else.  The Lord opposed them because of their greed and pride but also because they considered themselves experts on the Scriptures when they were not.  In fact, they badly misinterpreted the word of God but passed on their ideas as the true meaning of holy writ.  After giving common examples of their arrogance, the Lord declares, “They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers.”  That is, they meddle in wills and inheritances in ways that impoverish innocent and defenseless people, but excuse themselves from their wrongful actions by publicly reciting lengthy prayers, perhaps for those whom they have defrauded but which they hardly mean.  “They will receive a very severe condemnation.”  Those who worked for the harm of others shall themselves be severely punished.  We should note that the Lord qualifies “condemnation” with “severe” to teach that there are varying grades of punishment in hell.  The human inhabitants of hell are there because they committed sins of malice and did not repent from them.  But there is a difference between those who committed a great theft and those who commit serial murders, or between those who commit fornication and those who betray their countries.  Those in hell are punished in ways that befit their sins, the seriousness of their sins, and their number.  The Lord saying that the scribes will receive “a severe condemnation” shows something of the wrath of God towards the kinds of sins committed by the scribes.  Their long robes, long prayers, and smooth talk will not save them when they are judged.

Not long after Jesus condemns the scribes he “sat down opposite the treasury”.  The treasury was also known as the court of the women, as this was as far as women were permitted to go within the Temple complex.  It was an area out of doors just inside the main gate into the complex.  A box situated under the colonnades of the court served as the treasury itself.  Jesus sat of the ground “opposite” it and watched people putting their donations into it.  These were supposed to be used for the Temple’s upkeep.   “A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.”  The amounts tossed in the box by the rich would have attracted attention because of the jangling noise they made, but the thin, small coins put in by the widow would have made hardly any sound at all.  That she was a widow could be seen from her clothing, her age, and, most of all, from the the fact that she was alone.  No husband attended her.  She made her donation and then moved on.

“Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”  The Apostles must have been milling around, perhaps talking in small groups, so that the Lord has to call them together to see the widow.  He calls her “poor”, says that he lives in poverty, and that her donation consisted of her whole livelihood.  Just as Jesus had spoken of the scribes who “devoured the houses of widows”, she herself may have fallen victim to their machinations so that her present poverty came at the hands of one of these “rich people” who had contributed out of their surpluses.  Yet she had put in more than all the others in the eyes of God because her contribution came at a sacrifice — she might not eat that day — and so from her heart.  The wealthy contributions came only as a continuation of the show that involved long robes and prayers.

The Lord does not instantly enrich her or reimburse her.  He allows her to make her sacrifice so that she may might one day receive an eternal reward for it.  Her costly gift did not come as a sudden impulse but could only have come from a lifetime of devotion.  Her giving the dew coins with her heart proved a large deposit in the treasury in heaven.