Saint Mark tells us that during the final days before the Passion, Jesus sat opposite the treasury in the Temple and watched people placing their offerings in the receptacle for alms. Many wealthy people contributed large sums, but Our Lord made no particular comment about them. Then a poor widow approached and deposited two small copper coins, the least valuable coins in circulation. Saint Mark takes care to explain their value for his non-Jewish readers because he wants us to understand just how insignificant the offering appeared. If someone had been keeping a record of the contributions made that day, the widow’s gift might scarcely have seemed worth noting.
Jesus saw something very different. He called his disciples and told them that the widow had contributed more than all the others, because they had given from their abundance while she, in her poverty, had given everything she had. The two coins were almost worthless in themselves, but Christ saw the love with which they were given. What attracted his attention was not the size of the gift but the generosity of the person who offered it. The widow probably had no idea that anyone had noticed her, yet her small act became part of the Gospel and has taught Christians for two thousand years something essential about the way God looks at our lives.
We tend naturally to be impressed by what is large, unusual or publicly successful. God sees things according to a different measure. Great deeds can certainly give him glory, but their value before him depends upon the love and purity of intention with which they are done. The same is true of actions that seem insignificant. Most of us will have relatively few opportunities to do extraordinary things, but every day gives us countless opportunities to offer God something small. Saint Josemaría expressed this simply when he wrote that human love consists of little things and that divine love does as well. Anyone who has loved another person understands this. Affection is often expressed not through dramatic gestures but through attention to small needs and the effort to make another person’s life easier.
The widow’s offering also teaches us something about the true value of our ordinary actions. Much of what fills our day seems unimportant when viewed in isolation: a task completed carefully, an inconvenience accepted without complaint, a few minutes given to someone who needs us. Yet these things can acquire eternal value when we do them for God. Saint Francis de Sales reminded Christians that great opportunities to serve God are rare while small ones occur continually. Our path to holiness is therefore found mainly in the circumstances already before us. We do not need to wait for an exceptional opportunity to prove our love. We can give ourselves to God through the ordinary duties and relationships that make up each day.
This applies especially to our work. It is not enough that the work itself be morally good; we should also try to do it well. Saint Thomas Aquinas observed that we must attend both to what we do and to the manner in which we do it. A job can be substantially completed and yet remain careless in its details. The final touches often reveal whether we have worked merely to finish or whether we have tried to offer something worthy of God. If we want to sanctify our work, we cannot be indifferent to its quality. We should try to imitate Christ during his hidden years in Nazareth, where most of his earthly life was spent doing ordinary work among ordinary people. Those years remind us that holiness does not depend on the apparent importance of our occupation. It depends much more on the love and fidelity with which we carry it out.
Care for little things, however, should never become perfectionism or an obsession with details. The value of these things comes from love. Without love, attention to detail can become rigid or even Pharisaical, like the meticulous observance criticized by Our Lord in those who tithed mint and dill while neglecting justice and mercy. A perfectly completed task has little supernatural value if it is accompanied by pride, selfishness or disregard for others. We care about small things because they give us opportunities to love God and the people around us, not because every detail has the same objective importance.
Our own efforts may seem as small as the widow’s two coins, but they acquire a new value when we unite them to Christ. Saint John Paul II explained that our humble offering, insignificant in itself, becomes acceptable to the Father through its union with the sacrifice of Jesus. This is particularly clear in the Mass. We bring to the altar the work, difficulties, joys and sacrifices of our ordinary life and unite them to Christ’s perfect self-offering. What we give may seem very little, but once placed in his hands it becomes part of something infinitely greater than ourselves. The supernatural value of our actions therefore depends less on their outward size than on their union with Christ.
Our attention to small things also tells us something about the state of our spiritual life. Lukewarmness often begins gradually. We do not normally decide one morning to become careless in our relationship with God. We begin instead to neglect details that once mattered to us. Prayer becomes hurried, we arrive late for Mass without much concern, or we become less attentive in our work and more willing to excuse small acts of selfishness. No single failure may seem serious, but repeated carelessness can gradually weaken our love. Fidelity works in the opposite direction. When we try to remain attentive in small things, we keep alive the desire to give God our best.
This care naturally extends to our life of piety. God does not need our gestures, but the way we behave in his presence can express what is in our heart and can also help shape it. Arriving in good time for Mass, making a reverent genuflection before the tabernacle, or trying to remain recollected in church are small acts, but they express faith in the reality of God’s presence. The liturgy itself contains many gestures and details that might appear insignificant if considered apart from their purpose. As Saint Paul VI observed, nothing is small in the sacred liturgy when we consider the greatness of the One toward whom it is directed. Reverence is not a matter of external correctness for its own sake; our outward actions should help us express and deepen the faith with which we approach God.
The same principle applies to mortification. We may imagine sacrifice mainly in terms of demanding acts of self-denial, but most of our opportunities are much more ordinary. We can get up when we should rather than lingering unnecessarily, begin an unpleasant task instead of postponing it, accept the food placed before us without fuss, or keep our work and belongings in reasonable order. These things are small, and we should not exaggerate their importance. Yet precisely because they occur so frequently, they help us learn not to be governed by every preference or impulse. Through such ordinary acts we acquire greater freedom to give ourselves when something more demanding is asked of us.
Perhaps the most important application of this spirit is found in our relationships with others. Saint Josemaría spoke of an “apostolate of little things,” by which we try to make the path of those around us easier without drawing attention to ourselves. Much of charity takes this form. We listen when someone wants to speak even though we are preoccupied with something else. We overlook a minor irritation rather than making an issue of it. We notice that someone is carrying too much and offer practical help before being asked. None of this is dramatic, and often no one else will know what it has cost us.
These small acts can have a greater effect than we realize. The atmosphere of a family, a workplace or a community is shaped largely by ordinary interactions repeated day after day. A person who is habitually considerate makes life easier for everyone around him, while someone who is touchy or self-absorbed can make the same environment difficult. We therefore have countless opportunities to serve without announcing that we are serving. Sometimes the best help we give another person is something he scarcely notices: taking care of a task, refraining from an unnecessary criticism, remembering him in our prayer, or simply making ourselves available when he needs us.
Our Lady lived much of her life in this hidden way. Apart from a few decisive moments recorded in the Gospel, most of her years were spent in the ordinary circumstances of family life at Nazareth. She cared for Jesus and Joseph and carried out the duties of each day without public recognition. Yet no human life has ever been lived with greater love. Her example helps us understand that holiness does not require a succession of extraordinary events. What matters is the love with which we respond to God in the circumstances he gives us.
Most of our own lives will also be made up of ordinary days. We may sometimes be called to great sacrifices, but our love for God will usually be expressed in much smaller ways. The lesson of the widow’s two coins is therefore deeply encouraging. Nothing offered to God with love is insignificant. A small act of service, a duty carried out carefully, or an unnoticed sacrifice can become something precious in his sight. If we learn to recognize these opportunities, the ordinary circumstances of each day become the place where our love for God grows and where we prepare, little by little, for eternity.
We can ask Mary to help us live with this attention and simplicity. When we pray, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,” the word now includes the ordinary moment in which we find ourselves. It is there, in what we have to do today and in the people God has placed beside us, that we are called to love him. Like the widow in the Temple, we may have very little to offer, but if we give it with love, God knows its true value.
*By the Via Virtutis team
