[00:00] Praise be Jesus and Mary. We've heard this parable, actually it's not a parable, it's something that happened in front of Jesus. We've heard it many times in the Gospel of St. Mark. And I think we can summarize its fundamental teaching like this, that God doesn't just

[00:32] want some things, He doesn't just want a few things from us, He wants our very hearts, He wants us to give ourselves entirely to Him, place ourselves entirely in His hands with an act of most perfect trust. So let's analyze the difference here between the two sides. We have the scribes, and firstly we can analyze this under the, just considering the difference

[01:05] between pride and vanity. So we have the scribes who, as our Lord said, like to go around in long robes, accept greetings, be seen. So it suggests wanting glory, vainglory, doing things, doing things which might seem like doing good, and which the world might consider doing good, now maybe even doing good to the poor or feeding the hungry or something like that, or giving large sums of money, in this case to the synagogue, but doing it with the intention of being seen

[01:38] and being credited for that, praised for that. So what is the problem? That in God's sight, that action is completely corrupted. You're doing it for yourself, you're not doing it for Him, and there's no real gift of yourself behind it. You're doing it for yourself, so you're actually serving yourself. This is vainglory, and it ruins actions which, from the outside, seem even praiseworthy. So we always have to be very careful here, whereas the poor widow, the very nature of

[02:12] her act is to suggest humility, very small offering, something which humanly speaking would be more prone to make us feel embarrassed, rather than have some feelings of vainglory. "You know, this is all I have." But obviously, she wasn't concerned about what people were thinking at all. She was, with such great humility, placing all she had in that treasury, and that suggests those actions which are done, even those small actions, but that are done out of pure love

[02:45] for God. It's a big difference here. These are things that we see so clearly in the life, for example, of St. Therese, the little flower. You know, she understood the value of small actions, even little hidden things that no one else sees, but that are done with the sole intention of pleasing God, of loving Him. This is of such great importance. That's not to say that we shouldn't do big things sometimes, but if we do them, we have to make sure we have this intention of doing them for God alone, and not to be seen.

[03:23] Then there's also the contrast between putting in a large sum out of your surplus, and putting in all you have, even if it's a little amount. So here we see the difference between precisely giving of my surplus, but not myself, and giving myself to God. That's what this widow was actually doing. She was putting her whole livelihood, her whole life in His hands. So there's implicitly an act of complete abandonment and trust on her part.

[03:55] "This is all I have." So my whole future, everything that I will need tomorrow is in God's hands, because I don't have anything else. So there's an act of complete trust, abandonment implied here in her action of putting all she had into the treasury. And this is what we are all supposed to do. We're called to give ourselves entirely to God. So this is not to be understood in a quantitative sense, it's to be understood with regard to

[04:31] the intention, giving ourselves entirely to God, placing our lives entirely in His hands, having a complete trust in Him, and not just sort of giving something of our surplus and then going on with our lives as if we were in complete control of them and wanting to direct them on our own in an autonomous fashion. That doesn't represent the complete love and trust that God is asking from us. So whatever our state of life is, whatever our state in life is, we are called to this

[05:03] complete gift of self to God. Whatever I have to do in this state of life in which I live, I want that to be part of my expression of love for You. I want to belong to You, do everything for Your glory. Put my whole existence in Your hands and desire Your glory. This is so important. Otherwise we can find a situation where someone could even be doing a whole series of good works, they might even be dedicated as far as various even exercises of prayer goes,

[05:37] but they're doing it as if it was something on the side that I do for God, but then for the rest of my life He's just not a part of it. That is not a complete gift of self. Just one quick word about the words of St. Paul to St. Timothy where he says, "The time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth

[06:12] and will be diverted to myths." Well, this is undoubtedly the times in which we live, where we have so many myths and false ideas promulgated in our society and followed and actively professed. And obviously the internet contributes to that, where we have a lot of people who on podcasts and other social media are sort of self-appointed authorities in judging everything.

[06:45] There are self-appointed authorities and then they end up having a lot of followers, a lot of weight is given to what they say, and they end up swaying people from the truth. So we have to be very careful about this. We need to adhere to that sole voice that has been established by God, to the sole authority that has been established by Jesus, and that is the magisterium of the Church and its uninterrupted

[07:17] teaching right from Jesus Himself, from the apostles down to our day, and understanding, so adhering to the substance of that, which is unchanging, its eternal truth. So let us turn our ears and our minds and our hearts to that one voice through whom and through which we hear truth, through which truth is taught to us, and that is the Church,

[07:49] and be aware of the false ideas that circulate in our society. And let us also pray that man may begin to seek truth with his whole heart and mind and stop inventing his own truths. This is another big problem nowadays, not only being taught unsound ideas but then just inventing one's own truth. So I think, I think this, I think that, according to me, you know, that's not going to work. There's only one objective truth, and it's the one that has been taught to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.

[08:26] Praise be Jesus and Mary. Amen.