Jesus likes one who knows how to renounce everything to him.

We are preparing for the end of the church year. A look into nature speaks of a new time of year, winter. We are not asked questions: Have we done everything about God? Did we give God everything we were obliged to give? Nature orphan. She gave us everything that was born. Like an echo, the word “everything” is brought to us today (Mark 12:44).

The last sentence of today’s Gospel emphasizes the meaning of the word everything when the Lord Jesus said words of praise about a woman – a poor widow: “In her poverty, she gave everything she had, all her livelihood” (Mark 12:44).

There is something of dignity in a woman’s gesture, which deprives the present man of courage—a consumer man who would like to take and not give anything on his own. The word “everything” to sacrifice “everything” today shocks and at least amazes. The person who chooses to do so today is considered a madman or a weirdo. Jesus evaluates it differently. Today’s gospel represents three categories of people.

First, they are the teachings of the Scriptures, the scribes, the people, the consumers. They want to take. We know that they demanded respect from others, honors, titles, first places … The second group of people gives a lot, but only enough to still have enough left for themselves. On the contrary, the third is a group of people who were enchanted by the word “everything.” They are the ones who share what they have, with the last piece of bread, which for God, for Jesus, for another man they give everything, like a woman, a widow of the gospel. She doesn’t share; she gives everything she has. The gospel wants to point us to two different attitudes when one gives only something and gives everything. And a woman widow? Her “two small coins, which is a quadrant” (Mark 12:42), did not help anyone. However, the woman did “only” what she considered the best, gave everything, and thus put her life in direct dependence on God. Jesus’ way speaks of dependence on the Father; Jesus calls this path the path of a true disciple, so the Gospel does not speak of social feeling, but of surrendering one’s life to God; God wants the heart of man. It is irresponsible, but it is not easy either.

What is a sacrifice? In everyday life, every gift for God is called a sacrifice or gift. When out of love for God, he consciously and voluntarily renounces pleasant and permissible things for his soul or his brothers’ good. What is the victim’s goal? What the victim costs us. Our own life has the highest price of sacrifice. This is how we understand death for Christ. For example, let’s remember the Auschwitz martyr Maximilian Kolbe, who went out of love for God to a bunker of hunger for his fellow prisoner Francisco.

A sacrifice of love to God can also be the renunciation of food, not only during Lent and Friday, the renunciation of an evening film on television, when I use the time for my family or read something for my soul. It is also a gift to give up the benefits that belong to me. Renunciation is to help us overcome our weaknesses, mistakes, or sins.