The Scriptures that we read this Sunday would ordinarily appear every three years if it were not for the fact that these particular Sundays are oftentimes replaced by Feast Days such as those we have been celebrating for the past three weeks. So although we probably know the stories of the widow of Zarephath and the widow of Nain, it may have been years since we have heard them. We are treated to two “miracle” stories, stories of a two sons who were presumed dead but who were resuscitated and given back to their mothers.
It would be natural for us to focus our attention upon the two dead people who were returned to life. However, the real focus of these stories is upon their mothers. In fact, given the cultural background of these two stories, it might be said that they were the ones who were brought back to life. Both were widows. Widows were vulnerable in Mediterranean culture unless they had a son. They needed a man in their lives; without one they were voiceless. In fact, the Hebrew word for widow means “someone without a voice.” A man’s wealth was transferred to his oldest, living male relative upon his death. Wives and daughters were not able to inherit. So important was it to produce a male heir that newly married women were not considered a part of the family until they bore a son. The bond between mother and son was, consequently, even stronger than the bond between a woman and her husband. This was especially true because this culture permitted a man to have more than one wife.
When a widow lost an only son in this culture, she became a social pariah, an outcast, an unwanted and unproductive burden. By restoring their sons, both Elijah and Jesus save the widows from a life of crushing poverty and relentless ridicule. So while the miracles that Elijah and Jesus bring about might capture our attention, it is really the widows who are brought back to life.
Twenty-first century American culture is kinder to widows and to women in general. At the same time, they have simply been replaced by others who are voiceless, who are left to fend for themselves. Perhaps our culture no longer looks upon widows as a burden. However, we cannot deny that our culture and our society still deem some people as worthless and expendable. We talk about building walls on our borders to keep such people from coming to live in our cities and neighborhoods. We speak of excluding people upon the basis of what they believe because they believe differently than we do. We speak of being “pro-choice” instead of acknowledging that the unborn fetus is a vulnerable human being. We believe that everyone has a chance of making it in life if they just work hard at the same time that we ship jobs overseas simply to save money. We believe that it is perfectly moral for me to have more than I need even though it means that hundreds of people don’t have enough.
The Scriptures today focus our attention on the vulnerable ones. They are the ones who are saved by the miracles of Elijah and Jesus. The Scripture try to help us understand this by the fact that both Elijah and Jesus make a point of returning the boys to their mothers. The sacred writer tells us that those who witnessed these miracles were astonished, awestruck, amazed. However the really astonishing miracle is the one that was accomplished by the compassion that Elijah and Jesus had upon these two widowed mothers. Compassion for the vulnerable is a miracle that anyone of us can perform if we simply open our eyes to their plight.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator