St Cecilia | Monday 22 November 2021

Today is Monday the 22 November, the feast of St Cecilia, in the 34th week of Ordinary time.
 
The St Thomas Music Group sing the Prayer of St Theresa by Margaret Rizza.
Let nothing disturb you, nothing distress you. While all things fade away, God is unchanging.
  Be patient, for with God in your heart, nothing is lacking.
  God is enough.
 
Today’s reading is from the Gospel of Luke.
 
Luke 21:1-4
Jesus looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”
 
Unusually, this week, all the readings are taken from a single chapter of one gospel, chapter 21 of St Luke’s gospel. In it Jesus is reflecting on the “end times”, when God will bring human history to a close. Many of the early Christians thought that this would happen very soon, in their own lifetimes. This is the context of Jesus praising a widow who gives “all that she has to live on”. What do you make of her generosity now?
 
Some biblical scholars also suggest that Jesus was angry that the widow should have so little, when others were so wealthy. What do you make of this gulf, continuing today, between the “haves” and the “have-nots”?
 
What relevance does what Jesus is saying here have to your own life?
 
As the passage is read again, watch with Jesus as the rich and the widow make their offerings to the Temple treasury.
 
What might you want to say to the widow, or to Jesus himself, about what you have noticed in this time of prayer?
 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.