“Those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.” Married couples tell me that marriage is not a 50-50 proposition but a 100-100 necessity. Abraham Lincoln praised those who died at Gettysburg as giving the “last, full measure of devotion.” How many love songs have some variation of “you’re my everything.” And do you remember the movie, “All of me?” What Jesus is teaching us is that in the things that matter most we have to give it all away. Our normal tendency is to be cautious, to hold something in reserve, to keep some place we can retreat back to, to make sure there is something which is mine and mine alone. A lover, a parent, a soldier learns that doesn’t work at the crucial turning points in ones life. Jesus wants us to understand that God cannot be a hobby, something we can dabble in. God demands all that we are. Old timers might remember the prayer of Consecration to Mary: “My Queen and my Mother, I give myself entirely to you; and to show my devotion to you, I consecrate to you this day my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my heart, my whole being without reserve. Wherefore, good Mother, as I am your own, keep me, guard me, as your property and possession. Amen.”
