25 November 1991
Vangaindrano, Madagascar

My dear Sisters and Confreres,

The Gospel of St. Luke has a number of distinguishing features, one of which is the prominence which St. Luke gives to the place of women in the story of our salvation. First of all, we have read and reread those exquisite first two chapters of St. Luke's Gospel where women figure prominently, Our Lady, Elizabeth and Anna, the Prophetess. It is St. Luke who recalls gratefully the kind services which women gave to Our Lord as He went around preaching the Gospel. It is St. Luke who presents us with the grief of a widow who had lost her only son in death. In today's Gospel St. Luke draws our attention to the poor, generous widow who had put into the Temple treasury "all the living that she had." (Lk 21:4).

St. Luke does not give us the name of this widow. It would appear that Our Lord did not speak to her. All unnoticed she was doing what the love of God asked of her, as an expression of her devotion to Him. She did not realize the good she was doing. For that reason, I think that she could be declared the patroness of those who go about their work silently and unobtrusively, who receive little or no praise from anybody for what they do, and who do not realize the depth of the goodness of the heart which God has given them.

Our Lord did not seemingly say a word to the widow, but He did use the occasion to impress upon the Apostles the importance of generosity, of acting with God alone in view, which according to St. Vincent is the essence of simplicity. This widow of today's Gospel did not measure what she was doing. On occasion, I have thought that we have a passion for measuring things today. We measure the success of policies through questionnaires and assessments. We measure the achievements of people. We measure the time we devote to projects. The only thing we don't measure seems to be the time we give to measuring and assessing. Certainly, measure and assessment have their places: they can be valuable and necessary for planning the future. However, let us never forget that the ultimate and all important measure for us in our individual lives is the purity of heart with which we do the actions that make up our days. It was such purity of heart that Jesus Christ saw in the widow and by that He measured the depth of her generosity and goodness. We could say that, if we wish to measure our generosity at any time, we should do so by counting not so much what we have given away, but how much we have kept for ourselves.

The widow of today's Gospel, I suggested, could be the patroness of those who do not realize the good they are doing. I am quite certain that many missionaries do not realize the extent of the good they do, both inside and outside our Communities. Perhaps it is just as well. We are thus more easily helped, in St. Vincent's phrase, to remain "humble and hidden in the Lord." (CR XII, 10).

In your moments of discouragement about the value of your own work, think of the widow of today's Gospel who, until she met Christ in glory, never realized the extent of her generosity. "Your life is hidden with Christ in God." (Col 3:3). Be content that it be so. He knows, He sees your heart as He saw the generosity of the widow's heart. He will use your generosity in a way that you do not suspect, just as He used the generosity of the widow in a way of which she was totally unaware, for the instruction of the Apostles, His first missionaries.

Our generosity, however, needs careful cultivation. As the years advance and perhaps as our grip on life is loosened by age and a diminution of our forces, there grows up within us a desire to acquire more material things and to hold fast to them. Imperceptibly our hearts can become somewhat hard, and we become less generous towards others. The cultivation of generosity in our lives can be an expression of our vow of poverty. Let us frequently ask Our Lord to keep us generous and willing to heed the counsel of a priest-poet: "On Christ throw all away." (G. Hopkins).