"As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 'Truly I tell you,' he said, 'this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.'" [1]Quoted above is the parable of a widow with two small coins. She gave all that she had to live on. In other words, she had no more means to continue living, to pay for shelter, to purchase food and to pay for medication when she needs some [2]. In short, she had given up everything she had in order to sustain her life and it would not be long before she would die.
This is a parable that no Catholic priest would dare to touch because it undercuts the Church's most fundamental teaching which is to give to the poor. This widow was poor. That is clear. She had no husband to take care of her (she was a widow) and she did not have a job (I do not believe in those days women had jobs that pay, those women who were not engaged in the world's oldest profession). And what did Jesus do? He observed. He did not intervene by showering her with gold nuggets, or by asking His disciples to feed her, to wash her clothes, to give her a place to bathe and to give her shelter for as long as she lived.
Why did Jesus not help her when He could easily have with a miracle? He did not because He did not want to denigrate Her love for God that she expressed by her putting her two coins into the temple treasury. By giving up her last coins, she had expressed an irrevocable willingness to sacrifice her life for the love of God. Why did putting coins into the temple treasury represent such a sacrifice? Metaphorically speaking, the temple's treasury has only one treasure: God, and it was to God that she had given her last two coins, the last hours of her life.
No Catholic church today, and certainly not the Vatican, wants a donation from this woman, not because she was poor and would take pity on her, but because she was not rich enough to give them enough support to their lifestyles. Her two lousy coins are diddly squat to them and they could care less about her sacrifice. But not Jesus. Jesus saw immediately her love for God, a love so great that she would give her life for, a love that foreshadowed Christ's love for His Father that ultimately led Jesus to His own death on the Cross.
Hypocrites from the pope down ought to face the fact that they have no right to tell anyone to give to the poor until they themselves have become poor, and are willing to give up their lives (not lifestyles) for the love of God as did the widow who gave up her two coins, her means to life, in essence her life, for her love of God.
[1] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+21:1-4
[2] http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/medicine-in-the-ancient-world/
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