Not just for her pantry… but for her life, her future, her understanding of the world? Behold, the ‘poor widow’ of the Gospel has put ‘two pennies’ into the Temple Treasury… Everything for God. Nothing but for God… And now she has nothing left to live for… But only Jesus Christ spotted the gesture, even though it was visible to everyone, including his disciples and apostles. If we were to confine ourselves to the life of the world, the old lady was not of sufficient interest to be taken care of… Perhaps she was not representative enough for some… The Virgin Mary was probably a widow too. How many people passed her by without seeing her, without appreciating her in her rightful place…? The Curé d’Ars awakens us in this respect.

The same could be said for others. Indeed, we might ask: how did the Apostles fail to see the widow’s gesture of offering, and why did it take Christ to open their eyes? The same is true today of the way we look at various Church events. How many people came to see the Curé d’Ars and found nothing extraordinary about him? Didn’t it take a look of faith to declare after the encounter: ” I saw God in a man “? Similarly, 40 years later, how many Carmelite nuns around Thérèse de Lisieux declared that they had nothing so extraordinary to say about her? How many Christians or priests, even today, can miss the treasure of grace unveiled by God in Jean-Marie Vianney, and yet authenticated by the Church by presenting him to us as Patron Saint of all priests in France (1905) or Patron Saint of all parish priests ‘Urbi et orbi’ (May 31, 1925)? The same applies to us today: we know that one of the great pitfalls of the West, despite the glory of so many discoveries, lies in its pride of intelligence. Not only does it want to master everything, but it also wants to explain everything, and to diminish, if not erase (at least from its universe) what it doesn’t understand or what it reduces to its own views, be they economic, political, about power or money, religious or other. This can go so far as to reduce everything, even Christian existence, to his vision of the Christian life, without accepting to be disturbed, whatever he may say, by God-Himself and God-in-his-Church.

Who would be foolish enough to bet everything on God? So it’s not just a matter of looking at the widow of the Gospel… Humility… as the Curé d’Ars used to say … “Only the proud believe they are always doing well “… as he used to say… here we go. Only the proud believe they are always doing well ” … he said… here we are. Let’s ask the Lord to really take us in His hand throughout this Jubilee “Ars 2025”, so that He can make us taste the joy of being snuggled up to Him, so much so that we will have been seized by Him as His children…