The Gospel tells us that Jesus once sat near the Temple treasury watching people place their offerings into the collection boxes. Many wealthy worshippers came forward and contributed large sums. Then a poor widow approached and dropped in two small copper coins, the least valuable coins then in circulation. From a purely human point of view, her contribution was insignificant and could easily have passed unnoticed among the much larger offerings of others. Yet Jesus noticed her. He called his disciples and said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole livelihood.”

Our Lord saw something no one else could see. Those nearby saw only two tiny coins, while Christ saw the love and sacrifice with which they were given. The scene teaches us something essential about the way God looks at our lives. We naturally notice what is large and impressive, and we admire achievements or sacrifices that demand obvious heroism. God sees these things too, but he also sees what remains hidden from everyone else. He knows the intention with which we act and the love we put into what we do. Something very small in outward appearance may therefore have great value in his eyes.

Most of our lives are made up of little things. We occasionally face major decisions or circumstances that demand unusual sacrifice, but the ordinary day consists mainly of small duties and encounters. We begin our work, speak with the people around us, deal with interruptions, and try to fulfil the responsibilities that belong to our vocation. None of this may seem particularly important, yet it is precisely in these ordinary circumstances that God usually asks us to love him. St. Josemaría often emphasized that human love consists of little things and that divine love does as well.

We understand this easily in our relationships with other people. Affection is not usually sustained by dramatic gestures but by the way we treat one another every day. We listen when someone wants to speak, notice when help is needed, remember something that matters to another person or make a small sacrifice for his sake. Over time, these ordinary acts reveal the reality of our love far more convincingly than occasional grand gestures. Our relationship with God develops in much the same way. We show our love by being faithful to the duties he has entrusted to us, by trying to pray even when we do not feel particularly recollected, and by offering him the effort involved in our work.

This gives great importance to the ordinary circumstances of our lives. We do not have to wait for some exceptional opportunity to prove our love for God because the opportunities are already before us. We may have a task that we would prefer to postpone, someone may interrupt us when we are busy, or one small responsibility may remain at the end of a tiring day. Such moments will never appear in a biography, but God sees them. We do not need extraordinary circumstances in order to become saints because the ordinary circumstances of each day already give us abundant opportunities to love.

The saints certainly performed heroic actions when circumstances required them. Some gave their lives as martyrs, while others undertook works that had a lasting influence on the Church. Their holiness, however, was not formed only in those great moments. Long before a martyr faced death, he had learned to say yes to God in smaller things. Before someone could carry a great cross faithfully, he had already learned to accept the ordinary contradictions of life. Great generosity is usually prepared through many acts of self-giving that no one notices.

Our Lord himself lived in this way. For nearly thirty years at Nazareth, Jesus lived an ordinary life, and most of what he did during those years has not been recorded for us. He lived with Mary and Joseph, worked at his trade and shared in the ordinary responsibilities of family life. There were no crowds listening to him preach and no public miracles, yet every moment of that hidden life was perfectly pleasing to the Father. This should change the way we look at our own ordinary days.

We may sometimes reach the end of a day and think that nothing particularly important has happened. We went to work, completed our duties, spoke with a few people and returned home, and tomorrow may look much the same. God does not measure the importance of a day by how interesting it was. An ordinary day can be filled with love if we offer him our work, try to do it well, treat the people around us with consideration and accept what does not go according to plan without unnecessary complaint. Holiness is not usually built through dramatic moments but through a repeated willingness to love God in the circumstances he gives us.

Attention to little things matters for this reason, not because God wants us to become preoccupied with trivial details. The spiritual life should not make us anxious about whether every small action has been performed perfectly. If we love someone, however, the details matter to us because they give us opportunities to express that love. A person who loves does not constantly ask how little he can get away with. He wants to give.

We should develop the same attitude toward God. We do not fulfil our duties merely because they are obligations that must somehow be completed. We try to put love into them. This does not require us to feel devotion at every moment. Much of the time we may feel nothing special at all. We simply do what we know we should do and offer it to God. The action may be very small, but the love can be great.

The widow in the Temple did not know that Jesus was watching her. She could not have imagined that her two coins would be remembered throughout the world for centuries. She simply gave what she had. We too carry out most of our acts of love without knowing what value God may give them. A small sacrifice may help us grow in generosity, while a patient response may prevent an unnecessary conflict. Something we do for another person may affect him far more deeply than we realize. We do not need to calculate the results. Our task is to respond faithfully to the opportunities God places before us.

If little things can become expressions of our love for God, then the way we do them also matters. This does not mean that everything must be done perfectly. We are limited by time and ability, and there are occasions when something simply needs to be done adequately so that we can attend to other responsibilities. But when a task deserves our care, we should give it that care.

Again, Nazareth provides the model. We can be certain that Christ did not work carelessly. He would have completed his work conscientiously, treated people honestly and fulfilled his commitments. The tasks themselves may have been ordinary, but the love with which he performed them was not. We are called to bring the same spirit into our daily responsibilities.

Sometimes we are tempted to make a greater effort only when the result will be noticed or when our reputation is involved. Yet if something forms part of our duty, we should try to do it as well as the circumstances reasonably require. A small task done carefully can become an offering to God even if no one else notices the effort involved. God notices, and that is enough.

At the same time, care must be distinguished from perfectionism. Some people become excessively concerned with details and find it difficult to finish a task because there is always something more that could be improved. They may spend so much time perfecting one thing that other responsibilities are neglected. That is not what God asks of us. Sometimes excellence requires great attention to detail; at other times, the right thing is to accept an imperfect result and move on. If we are working for God and for others, we can ask what the task actually requires and then try to meet that standard without becoming anxious.

The same balance applies to our spiritual life. Small details can express great love when they arise from what is in our heart. The way we genuflect before the tabernacle can express our faith in the Real Presence. Arriving on time for Mass can show that what we are about to do matters to us. Taking a moment to recollect ourselves before prayer can help us remember whom we are speaking to. These gestures have value when they express and deepen faith, but holiness does not consist principally in external correctness. The Pharisees were meticulous about many details, yet Our Lord reproached them when they neglected what mattered more.

We therefore need to avoid both carelessness and excessive concern with minor details. If our attention remains fixed on loving God, we will usually find the right balance. We will care about small things because they provide opportunities to love, but we will not become anxious or scrupulous about matters that do not deserve such weight.

This same principle applies to our struggle against defects. We sometimes imagine that spiritual growth depends upon making large resolutions. We decide that from now on we will be completely patient or perfectly disciplined, only to discover very quickly that our good intentions have not transformed us overnight. Usually, we make progress through smaller and more concrete efforts. We may need to get up when the alarm rings rather than delaying unnecessarily, finish an unpleasant task instead of postponing it again, or accept one inconvenience without making everyone around us hear about it.

These things are not heroic achievements, but they train us to become freer from our immediate preferences. We do not make small sacrifices because discomfort is good in itself. We make them because we need to overcome the tendency to seek our own comfort continually. If we never deny ourselves in small things, we may find it much harder to be generous when something greater is asked of us.

Our Lord says, “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much” (Lk 16:10). We prepare for greater acts of fidelity through the ordinary choices we make each day. This does not mean that every small preference has moral importance or that we should examine trivial decisions as though everything were equally significant. Christian life should make us freer, not more anxious. But throughout the day, situations naturally arise in which we can choose between our immediate preference and what love asks of us.

Sometimes someone needs our attention when we would rather continue what we are doing. We may be tempted to leave an unpleasant task for someone else, or something may go wrong and our first impulse is to complain. These are small crossroads where we can forget ourselves a little. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we do not. When we fail, we should recognize what happened, ask God for help and try again the next time. This is how habits are gradually formed.

We do not ordinarily become patient through one great act of patience. We grow by repeatedly trying to control our irritation in the ordinary circumstances of life. In the same way, generosity develops as we repeatedly give something of ourselves when we would have preferred not to. The process is gradual, and this should encourage us. We may look at a virtue we lack and feel that the distance is enormous, but God is not ordinarily asking us to acquire it all at once. He asks us to respond to the grace he gives us now.

We should also remember that small omissions can gradually weaken us. Serious spiritual decline rarely happens all at once. We may begin by becoming careless about prayer or repeatedly postponing some duty. No single omission appears very serious, but habits are slowly being formed. When we notice that we are becoming careless in some area, it is better to correct the problem while it is still small. We do not need to become alarmed or discouraged; we simply recognize what is happening and begin again.

The same principle works in the opposite direction. A small act of fidelity can make the next one easier. When we overcome ourselves once, we discover that we can do it again, and what once required great effort may gradually become more natural. We should never underestimate what God can do through these ordinary choices. The widow had only two coins, but she did not wait until she possessed something more impressive to give. She gave what she had.

This is often what God asks of us. Perhaps today we cannot offer him some great sacrifice, but we can offer the duty in front of us and put more love into the next thing we do. Tomorrow he will give us other opportunities. Day after day, these small offerings become part of our response to his love.

Our attention to little things is especially important in our relationships with other people. Relationships are usually strengthened or weakened not by dramatic events but by what happens every day. We may sincerely love someone and still become careless in the way we treat that person. Familiarity can make us less attentive, so that we stop expressing gratitude because we assume it is understood or become more impatient at home than we would ever allow ourselves to be with strangers.

Marriage, friendship and family life are sustained by countless ordinary acts of consideration. We listen when someone wants to speak, notice when another person is tired and apologize when we have been inconsiderate instead of defending ourselves unnecessarily. None of these actions is extraordinary, but together they communicate love. The opposite is also true. Repeated acts of selfishness or sharpness can gradually create an atmosphere in which affection weakens.

This is why charity must enter into the details of daily life. It is easy to think of ourselves as loving people in general, but the real test is much more concrete. We discover the reality of our charity in the way we treat the person who interrupts us, how we respond when someone makes the same mistake again, and what happens when we are tired and another person needs us.

Our Lord repeatedly draws our attention to this kind of ordinary love. He tells us that even a cup of cold water given in his name will not lose its reward. A cup of water is a very small gift, yet Christ notices the love with which it is given. It is the same lesson he taught when he watched the widow place her two coins in the treasury.

We may never know how much good a simple act of kindness has done. Someone may be carrying a burden we know nothing about, and a few words of encouragement may arrive at exactly the right moment. Taking time to listen may mean far more than we realize. We do not need to know the result; we simply try to be attentive to the people God places in our path.

This requires us to come out of ourselves. When we are absorbed in our own concerns, the people around us easily become part of the background. Christ never looked at people that way. Even when surrounded by crowds, he noticed individuals. He saw Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree, heard the blind beggar whom others told to be silent, and noticed the woman who touched his garment while many people were pressing around him. In the Temple, he saw a poor widow whose offering everyone else would have overlooked.

We can ask Christ to teach us to look at people as he did. As we become less absorbed in ourselves, we notice more readily the small opportunities we have to make another person’s life easier. Often very little is required, but these small acts can express a great deal of love.

Attention to little things also helps us persevere when life seems monotonous. There are periods when our spiritual life feels uneventful. We pray and fulfil our duties, but nothing particularly inspiring seems to happen, and we may not feel that we are making much progress. At such times, we can be tempted to imagine that holiness must be found in more interesting circumstances.

Much of holiness, however, consists simply in continuing. We get up and begin another day. We pray even when prayer seems dry, return to our work and try to fulfil the responsibilities of our vocation. This kind of fidelity may seem unimpressive, but it can be very pleasing to God.

The saints lived through thousands of ordinary days. We tend to remember the extraordinary moments because those are the events recorded in biographies, but the saints also had duties to fulfil and people who tested their patience. They experienced fatigue and periods when prayer required effort. They became saints in those circumstances too.

We should therefore not wait for life to become more interesting before taking holiness seriously. The life we have now is the life in which God is calling us to sanctity. This does not mean that every circumstance is directly willed by him or that we should never try to change situations that need changing. It means that, whatever our present circumstances, we can ask how God wants us to respond today.

Usually, the answer will involve something quite ordinary. We do the next thing that needs to be done and try to do it with love. We do not need to carry the whole future at once or imagine that we must become saints by tomorrow. We need only respond to the grace God gives us in the present. Perhaps the present moment offers nothing more dramatic than finishing a task we have been avoiding or giving someone our full attention. That may be our equivalent of the widow’s two coins: something very small in itself, but valuable because of the love with which we give it.

Our fidelity in small things also prepares us for greater demands that may come later. We cannot know in advance what God may ask of us. We may face illness, disappointment or circumstances in which fidelity requires real courage. We prepare for those moments through the choices we make now. Someone who has learned to overcome himself in smaller matters is better prepared when a greater sacrifice is required, and a person who has learned to turn to God in ordinary difficulties will find it more natural to seek him when a serious trial arrives.

We should take this seriously without becoming anxious about every small failure. Christ knows our weakness and does not ask us to live under constant tension. He invites us to love him in the circumstances of each day, and love begins with what is in front of us. We may struggle for years with what appears to be a minor defect. The fact that something is small does not necessarily mean that it will be easy for us. God sees every sincere effort, even when progress is slow.

Sometimes the struggle against a persistent defect helps us in ways we did not expect. We become more aware of our weakness and learn to ask God for help. We may also become more understanding of other people because we know from experience how difficult it can be to change. We should therefore not measure our spiritual life only by visible results. God may be doing more in us than we realize.

The widow could not have imagined what Christ saw in her offering. She simply gave her two coins and perhaps left the Temple thinking that she had done nothing remarkable. But the Son of God had seen everything. This can give us confidence when much of the good we do remains unnoticed. We may spend years caring for someone without receiving much gratitude or carry out ordinary responsibilities that no one thinks to praise. Perhaps even we ourselves will forget many of the sacrifices we have made. God forgets nothing that is done out of love.

We should not keep a mental account of our good deeds. It is better to forget them and continue loving. At the end of our lives, we may discover that some of the moments that mattered most were ones we hardly noticed at the time: an occasion when we remained patient instead of answering sharply, the time we gave to someone when we were busy, or an ordinary duty carried out faithfully for years. These things may have had a value we never recognized.

The Christian life is lived largely in such ordinary moments. We need great ideals and should aspire to holiness, ready to make great sacrifices if God asks them of us. But we should not spend our lives waiting for a great opportunity to love him. We already have that opportunity in the circumstances of each day.

The widow had only two coins, and she gave what she had. We too can place the ordinary circumstances of today in God’s hands. They may seem insignificant to us, but if we fill them with love, God knows exactly what they are worth.

*By the Via Virtutis team
Photo by Susana Bartolome on Unsplash