Two small coins. Homily for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.

As Jesus sat down opposite the treasury he watched the people putting money into the treasury. A poor widow cam and put in two small coins. Giving which is real giving has a certain recklessness in it. The poor widow that we meet in today’s gospel might have kept one coin of those two coins for herself. It wouldn’t have been much, but it would have been something. But, she gave everything she had. It is a strange and a lovely thing that the person whom the New Testament and Jesus hand down to history as a pattern of generosity was a person who gave a gift of two small coins, just a few cents.