About 100 years ago, the Carthusian abbot Dom Augustine Guillerand wrote this as part of a prayer:
“(Oh God)…goodness gives itself – like the sun shines, emits its rays, and diffuses its light; like a fire gives out its warmth or a spring pours forth its waters.
God, You are that Goodness, that gift of self, that light, that heat, that spring watering the earth. And You have introduced me into your presence – me, a tiny thing, empty, cold, unknown, and self-centered in order that I may receive, insofar as I can, Your being.”
When we are fully living that presence of God, we are living and radiating that Goodness ourselves. We almost can’t help it. Like the widow in tonight’s Gospel, someone by her very label a woman in need of healing, a deep relationship with God can be cultivated so that, like her, we can give ourselves, down to the last penny. Her contribution — and ours, potentially — is noticed and commended by Jesus, the Goodness of God personified and exemplified in human history.
Whether you are here tonight for the Sacrament of Anointing or because you brought someone or just because you come to this Mass regularly, there is a level of healing that we are all constantly in need of. When we step into the practice of the presence of God, we just don’t go from healing to healed. The road is not that simple or uni-dimensional. We are also in a process of reflecting that light, warmth and spring of water to those we meet, or even to those who just observe us.