Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

NOVEMBER 10, 2024

GOSPEL MEDITATION

Once at an evening Mass as a poor college student, the collection basket was fast approaching, and I only had a ten-dollar bill. I was planning on
using that to buy my favorite Chipotle burrito that night for dinner. Should I keep the money? Who would know if I did? If I gave it away, what would
I eat? Would I be okay? I kissed my future burrito goodbye, dropped the money in the basket, and winced. But strangely, the rest of the Mass I felt
more engaged than usual. I had skin in the game. I left the Mass excited to see how God would take care of me. And he did, in amazing ways.

When the poor widow places two copper coins in the temple treasury, Jesus doesn’t pity her. He praises her. He blesses her. He brags about her. He celebrates her as the temple’s largest benefactor. Her giving is an act of radical, concrete trust in God. It is as if she is entering a new level of giving that excites Jesus, because she contributes not out of her abundance, but she gives “everything she had.”

What a challenge this is to each one of us! How easy it is to ignore this! But imagine the eruption of the energy of faith, hope, and love that would be unlocked if our financial sacrifices to the Church actually tapped into daily bread and not only our disposable income. I challenge us to try this in some way this coming week and see what happens in our hearts. Even if it costs us a burrito.

– Father John Muir

A FAMILY PERSPECTIVE

The widow in today’s gospel gave only a little, but it counted for a lot. In our homes there are many LITTLE MOMENTS which can have great significance and glue the family together. Seize the moments.

– Bud Ozar

EVERYDAY STEWARDSHIP

Have you ever made the mistake of telling your spouse that you’re out of something — only to see them respond with The Look? Then you realize it: of course, he or she knows you’re out of butter. They knew it before a butter shortage was even a blip on your radar.

We might go to the fridge and lament the complete lack of ketchup. Then someone moves a couple items and show us the ketchup that so savagely eluded us just moments before. Sometimes, we all have “the look” when dealing with God. We tell Him our stores are empty. “I’m out, God! I can’t do anymore! Can’t give any more. Can’t take any more. It’s all gone.” But we forget: God is the keeper of our stores. He is the one who fills
them, and the one who watches as they empty.

See, we don’t know how much we are capable of loving. We don’t know how much we are capable of serving. We don’t know how much we are capable of hoping. We see everything with spouse eyes. Only our Creator truly knows the limits of His creation. Do you ever make the mistake of telling God “I’m done”? Be careful the next time you do. Chances are, He’s far from finished working

 2024 Catholic Stewardship Consultants

 

PRACTICING CATHOLIC – RECOGNIZE GOD IN YOUR ORDINARY MOMENTS

There are several moments throughout the calendar year when we are tricked into thinking we can reinvent ourselves. One of them is New Year’s Day. The barista at my coffee shop told me that they sell more decaf coffee in January than in the entirety of the remaining year, because everyone is swearing off caffeine. By February, she said, the trend subsides: folks have realized they’re not actually superheroes just because the last digit of the year has increased by one.

The beginning of a new school year is another of those moments. Every pencil is freshly sharpened, and every lesson plan is painstakingly plotted. Our heads are full of what we plan to do this year, how we plan to do it, who we plan to become. But by May, the wind is out of our sails. We’ve learned the concepts, we’ve used up the pencils, yes — but we’ve remembered that underneath it all we’re basically the same people, with the same shortcomings and the same obstacles as we always were. The only difference in September was we had new planners.

The truth is that we cannot reinvent ourselves. We can’t change ourselves at all, not on New Year’s Day or the first day of school or on our 40th birthday or after quitting a bad habit. We are what we are: blind in some ways, deaf in others, crippled in still more, moving through life with uncertainty, stumbling in the dark.

People don’t change. Not without miracles.

But being a Christian means believing in miracles and being ready for them at any moment — in January or in September, in the middle of a hopeless week or at the end of a bad day, when you feel strong and when you don’t, when you want to be better and when you feel too tired to try. No, we can’t change ourselves, but we can be changed. There is one who can change us if we will let him. He is waiting — now, tomorrow, yesterday, next week. The time is always right for a miracle. “He put his finger into the man’s ears … and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’— that is, ‘Be opened!’