The Widow's Plight

Traditionally, we read the Widow's Mite story as a story about generosity. But I would like to reflect on it in the context in which Mark wrote it, as tragic evidence of religious exploitation of simple, suffering, and powerless humanity for which Jesus condemned the Temple religious establishment. 

In today’s gospel, Jesus was teaching in the Temple. He has just condemned the unscrupulous scribes who devour widows' property under the pretext of religious fervor. Then he looks up and sees this widow putting everything she had, her whole living, into the treasury and he points to her and says, "See what I mean?" The scribes never literally robbed widows' houses. But by their teaching they exploited widows by persuading them in their privation to give up even the little they had. 

Jesus commends the exploited widow. Why? Does Jesus approve of the process that has reduced her to the state of indigence? No. Jesus praises her for her sincere and total trust in God, not for the sorry fact that the religious establishment was taking advantage of it. Finally, in the kingdom of God, between the victimizer and the victimized, it is always the victimized who gets the better deal. 

The widow symbolizes all who have no voice, no means, and no power because of any exploitative social, religious, cultural, and legal systems. Who would such people be today? Do we as individuals and as a church reach out to such people to help them improve their lot and work assiduously to change the system that perpetuates such conditions? Or do we only tell them to pray harder and everything will be all right, knowing quite well that it takes more than prayer to revive their fortunes? The Catholic Church, through her social teachings, invites us to be vigilant and stand up to the promotion of social justice, peace, and human dignity, to live a life of solidarity bearing in mind that whatever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do for God (Mt. 25:40).