Crisis of Faith/Crisis of Love

Chapter 15

by Fr. Thomas Keating

The Reward of the Widow's Mite

The offering of this widow is substantially the same as that of Mary of Bethany.48 You remember she offered Jesus the entire contents of an expensive bottle of perfume. There was nothing surprising about offering perfume. Everybody knew that she loved Jesus, and that perfume was a good symbol of that love. But what caused the astonishment of everybody present at the supper and the indignation of at least one of the disciples was the lavishness of the gift, the extraordinary gesture of pouring out, not just a few drops of the costly liquid, but everything that was in the jar.

"Here it is," she said, speaking by action rather than by words. A little drop was all that was expected . . . Bang! She smashed the bottle and poured the entire contents over his head! No thought of leaving a little aside for tomorrow, or for somebody else, or for herself. No thought of the price. The lavishness of the gift, that is the essential point of the story. That is what moved Jesus so much. That is why he wanted this incident to be recorded for all ages to come, "wherever the gospel is preached,"⁴⁹

Now the sweet little widow, the gospel tells us, offered "all that she had to live on."50 It was numerically not much--two small coins--but it was all she had. Jesus immediately noticed it and brought it to the disciples' attention in exactly the same way that he publicized the offering of his friend, Mary of Bethany.

It is vanity for us to aim at offering something great in this world's eyes or in our own. Intellectual people harbor a secret hope of reaching Christ by means of their brilliance. Strong willed people hope to reach him by means of their austerities or great works. Both of these approaches are useful but not ultimate. They are only means. If we are strongly inclined to one or the other, we may tend to make them ends instead of means.

What Christ values is the surrender of a truly humble heart. No other means will ever reach him, not at least in the sense of full union. It is so easy and yet so hard. You do not have to have anything special to offer, but it does have to be your all.

In the school I attended as a boy there was a very well-thought out athletic program designed to keep the youngsters busy during their free time. It consisted of a series of athletic contests such as chinning, climbing a rope ladder or pole, broad jump, high jump, etc. For each of these contests a certain number of points were awarded, and at the end of the year the boy with the highest number of points received a beautiful loving cup with his name inscribed on it.

The athletic director was one of those genial characters often found in charge of athletic programs, affectionately known as "Chief." One of the most difficult and exciting contests was rope climbing. For this event he used to have in hand a very large stop-watch. the contestants would step forward, put their hands on the rope, and when Chief said, "Go!" they would start climbing. If you reached the top in ten seconds, you got ten points; six seconds seconds, sixty points; three seconds, a hundred and fifty points. You had to be pretty wiry and strong to go up that fast. The pole climb provided a little friction for sweaty feet, but for rope climbing these did not help. It was all muscle.

Some of the youngsters used to go shooting up the rope with great speed. Now there was one fellow, Joe by name, who was an intellectual. As happens in the case of some intellectuals at that age, he was very fat. Joe found this particular part of the athletic program extremely humiliating. He literally could not get off the ground.

Every time the rope-climbing contest came he would go through the motions of grasping the rope. Chief would say, "Go!" Then Joe would dangle helplessly amid the jeer of his companions. It was a good chance for them to get even with him for the straight A's he got in the classroom. The effort would make Joe's neck bulge and is face would turn very red. His companions would call out, "What's the matter, Joe? Hurry up! . . . Next!"

On day when the rope-climbing contest came around and Joe's name was called out for his turn, he stoutly declined. Chief was a shrewd man and had an eye out to train his boys.

"Joe, aren't you going to make a least a try at climbing the rope?" Chief inquired.

Joe said, "No." There was a lot of hooting from the crowd. 

Chief puffed heavily on his cigar and looking squarely at Joe, challenged him with offer: "I'll give you one point for trying."

One point for trying! Others that day had been getting sixty, eighty, and a hundred points. It did not sound like much of an offer. But Joe stepped forward, despite the jeers of his companions, put his hands on the rope, and dangled there in his customary helpless position. He huffed and puffed for thirty or forty seconds, got nowhere, and withdrew. It was the usual failure. Meanwhile, Chief, with a great flourish of the pen, put down one point after Joe's name.

Somebody else of course won the loving cup. But whom do you think would have received it if the same Person who noticed the poor widow had been Joe's scorekeeper?

When the recording angels were going over the figures at the end of the school year, they saw that many had received hundreds of point for the rope-climbing contest. When they came to Joe's name, they saw only one. But they also saw the humiliation that went into that one point for trying. They took their pencils and started adding zeros. He wound up with millions of points.

From God's point of view, it is not accomplishments but effort that counts. If we accept our poverty and limitations, but still go on trying, we will rate higher than everybody else in God's book, just as the poor widow did. The divine action is pushing us to the extremity which Job symbolizes, where we have nothing left to offer. Yet Jesus still asks us to make efforts, even though we know they will not succeed. To forgive, to hold back a critical word, to be kind to an enemy, seems at times impossible. God encourages us saying, "I'll give you one point for trying!"

Here is the reason. If we make the effort and receive that one precious point for trying, God can take his pencil and start adding zeros after it. But if that crucial one point is missing, no amount zeros can help. Our score will be just plain "zero."

What did Jesus mean when he said of the poor widow and her offering, "She put in more than all the others?" She actually put in only two small coins. But he knew that he was adding zeros so that she would turn up with the loving cup. She really got the first prize, but without knowing it. It never entered her mind that she was doing something great. True greatness scarcely recognizes itself. Its left hand does not know what its right hand is doing.51

Jesus' doctrine goes right to the heart of reality and presents us with true values, cutting across all sham, show, superficiality, and the accidental. "My son, give me the gift of your heart."52 That is what he wants. With that gift he can add everything else. But without it, our score will always be very low no matter how much the audience may applaud.

48.  Matthew 26:6-7.        To text
49.  Matthew 26:13.          To text
50.  Luke 21:4.                 To text
51.  Mathew 6:3.              To text
52.  Proverbs 23:26.          To text

More information can be obtained by reading the book Crisis of Faith/Crisis of Love by Fr. Thomas Keating.  It is offered in our