Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus praises the poor widow’s generosity. We know that such generosity is patterned on God’s profligate, grace-filled giving.
Christianity teaches that all people are sinners and hence deserving of punishment but that God, out of sheer generosity, gives them what they don’t deserve. Think of one of the most popular lines in Christian poetry: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”
God pours out the whole of creation in an effervescent act of generosity, and then, even more surprisingly, he draws his human creatures, through Christ, into the intimacy of friendship with him. Christianity is a religion of grace that exults in this divine generosity. Think in this context of the parable of the workers hired at different times of the day or the story of the prodigal son.
But we know that the gift is not for us alone; rather, the generosity of God is meant to awaken a like generosity in us. If amazing grace has saved a wretch like me, I have to become a vehicle of grace to every lost soul around me.