Monday of the Thirty-Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Scripture

We have just celebrated the Solemnity of Christ the King, and hence we are rapidly approaching the end of our liturgical year. If we have faithfully walked these 34 weeks with the Lord, we have grown closer to Him. Hopefully one thing we have realized is that everything comes from the Lord, and we are called to live our lives with this realization shaping all that we do on a day to day basis.

In today’s first reading we hear from the book of Daniel. It is an interesting tale of the young Jewish men who, in captivity to the Chaldeans and King Nebuchadnezzar, are taken into the royal court. Rather than eat unclean foods, they eat only vegetables and water. They will not sacrifice their faith, even in the midst of difficult challenges of life. And because of this faith in God, they receive many graces, including particular talents, and also wisdom and prudence. We see in the lives of these young men the acknowledgement that everything comes from the Lord. What this means to them is that they must honor God and not forsake Him, despite their daily struggles. And we will see that more struggles are yet to come for these young men. They will continue to stand firm and interpret everything that happens to them in relation to God’s gifts. Throughout everything, they continue to praise and worship God, to serve him in so many visible and invisible ways, that they become powerful witnesses to God’s love and protection.

The widow featured in today’s gospel reading from Luke also witnesses to God’s love and protection. This woman has no man to depend on. And because she has no man to depend on, she doesn’t have to depend on man. She depends on God. She is poor and alone in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of the Lord she is important and loved. The widow can recognize that everything comes from the Lord, and so she freely offers all that she has back to the Lord. As Jesus says, “her whole livelihood” (Lk 21:4). This is what we are called to do – to offer our whole livelihood. Everything we do each day can become an offering to God wherein we give him everything we have. In so doing we recognize that all that we have is a gift from God, whether it is our resources, our family, our friends, our job, or even our sufferings.

We have the opportunity to love God in each little act of washing dishes, listening charitably to a coworker who annoys us, or bearing a headache with a smile. Daniel and his companions show us that sometimes life will be difficult. While we will not likely be captive to a foreign king, we are sometimes caught up in the values of our culture, from excess materialism to fearing death. Like the young men in the first reading, we must stand firm to our faith in the face of challenges, even when it requires sacrifice.

Life is not always easy, but it is beautiful, and it can be joyful when we recognize the many gifts of God. If we can accept these gifts and use them as our own response of love to God, we come to know better both God and ourselves. Today, let us take some time to reflect on how everything is a gift from God. How can we transform our daily lives so that they are a return of his love?

- Maria Morrow