Growing up, I heard a story about a young boy whose mother sent him off to Mass. But before he left, she gave him two quarters. (This is back when a quarter was still worth something!)
“This quarter,” she said, “is for God. And this one is for you to get a candy bar after Mass.”
Delighted, the boy runs off.
While making his way into town – just as he’s crossing a bridge – he trips over his shoelaces, causing the two quarters to fly out of his hand.
Fortunately, he’s able to save one of them. But the other rolls off the bridge into the water below.
Looking up at God, back down at the water, and up to God again, he sighs and says, “Sorry God, that one was yours.”
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“Sorry God, that one was yours.”
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In the Gospel, a poor widow empties her life savings into the Temple treasury. By today’s standards, it may have been worth fifty cents … two quarters.
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On the surface, I’m sure we’re all thankful we’re not poor like that widow.
Imagine her stomach growling with hunger, her bones aching with age, her clothes reeking with dust, as she drops her final two coins into the collection.
Where does she go from here? How will she get through the day?
The fact that she’s a widow also means that she has no husband at home – he must have died some years before – and perhaps she has no children, either. She is bitterly poor, truly on the fringe of society.
It’s easy to think, “Thankfully that isn’t me.”
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But, on a deeper level, we may discover a type of envy in our hearts.
This widow gives everything she has to God.
The fact that she gives only two quarters is not the point. What matters is the fact that she hands herself entirely over to God, something only the Saints are able to do.
Deep down, some of us may be thinking, “I wish I could give myself like that to Christ…how my life would be different! I wish I had that kind of radical abandon…that kind of faith, that kind of trust, that level of generosity.”
“I wish I had it…But I don’t. I’m not like that widow at all.”
And so the widow’s story gets filed away in our minds in the same section as the other Saints, whom we admire on Sundays or on their feast days.
We listen to their stories, but walk away unchanged.
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What if that’s a lie? What if we really do have something in common with the widow? What if there is something we can all give to God, something we have very little of?
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We are all limited by our time.
We only have so much of it, and we’re all afraid of when it will run out.
For this reason, time can be harder to share than treasure. You can give a dollar away today and earn another one tomorrow, but you can never get your time back.
Once it’s spent, it’s gone.
That’s why it can be much harder to give God our time than our wallet. But that’s what he’s really after in the end anyway – our undivided attention.
The same is true for our family and friends.
I’ve never met any child who’s said, “I wish my parents worked more.” Or, “I wish my grandparents missed more of my soccer games.” Or, “I wish my best friend moved to another town sooner.”
I’ve never met any couple that’s fallen in love say, “I wish our time together would run out.”
Or any person say, “This has been the best day ever. I hope it ends quickly!”
We always want more time, which is why it may be our most valuable possession.
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So how much of my time do I give to God, to my family, and to serving the poor?
And how much time do I keep for myself?
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Can I give more of my time away?
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As the old saying goes, “Time is money.” Like that widow, let’s spend our time where it really counts – on God, our family and friends, and serving Jesus in the poor.