Monday, November 23, 2026 — Monday of the Thirty-Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
The widow’s two coins
Luke 21:1-4
Readings of the day: Revelation 14:1-3, 4b-5; Psalm 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6; Luke 21:1-4.
The Gospel
Jesus watches people putting their offerings into the temple treasury. The rich give from their surplus, but a poor widow puts in two small coins, all she has to live on. Jesus says she has given more than all the rest.
Reflection
The Lord does not weigh the gift; he weighs the heart that gives it. The rich gave from their surplus, and their gift cost them nothing. The widow gave her whole livelihood, and her gift cost her everything. “For God regarded not the scantiness of the offering, but the overflowing of the affection,” says St. John Chrysostom. What matters is not how much we give, but how much of ourselves goes with the gift. The widow’s two coins remind us that no gift is small when it is everything we have.
From the Fathers
“For whatever we offer with an honest heart is well pleasing to God, who hath respect unto the heart, not the substance, nor does He weigh the amount of that which is given in sacrifice, but of that from which it is taken.”
— St. Bede the Venerable, in the Catena Aurea on Luke 21:1–4
“For God regarded not the scantiness of the offering, but the overflowing of the affection. Almsgiving is not the bestowing a few things out of many, but it is that of the widow emptying, herself of her whole substance.”
— St. John Chrysostom, Homily 1 on Hebrews, in the Catena Aurea on Luke 21:1–4
Saint of the day
Saint Clement I (d. c. 101), Pope and Martyr, third successor of St. Peter, who ruled the Church from about 92 to 101. His Letter to the Corinthians is one of the oldest Christian writings outside the New Testament, and tradition holds that he died a martyr. The Church also commemorates today St. Columban, Abbot, and Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro, priest and martyr (in the United States).
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Sources: the day’s readings follow the daily lectionary (USCCB, Lectionary 503). The Gospel text is not reproduced here; read it at the link above. Patristic quotes: Catena Aurea on Luke 21:1–4, compiled by St. Thomas Aquinas, translated by John Henry Newman (1841, public domain).