On the one hand, the law of Moses commands the giving of a tithe. On the other hand, this widow gives, as Christ says, "all her living," that is, much more!

This is when we become true disciples of Christ: not when we count how many days remain until the end of Great Lent, but when we want to abide in it every day; not when we are true disciples of God by arriving at the service without being late and leaving no earlier than the dismissal, but when we want to come long before it begins, into the half-darkness of an empty church, and after the service want to stay longer and pray, pray, pray, when only truly urgent matters force us to leave the church. We are not Christ's disciples when we walk with a person as far as he asks, but when we are ready to walk twice as far: "and if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles" Matthew 5:40-41).

"But what is this abundance for?" someone may ask. It is for one simple reason: because God "gives the Spirit without measure" (John 3:34). If the Lord pours out His love without measure, why should we be miserly when everything we have is from Him?

Christ's mysterious words about the end of the world and His second coming have mattered in every age. People have always been torn between a sense that the end is near and the warning that no one knows the time. But it appears that words one writer once said about death also apply to the end of the world: it is not only in the future; it is already at work in the world.

That is why the Gospel prophecies can be addressed to every person, whatever age he lives in. They contain not only a prediction of the final horrors; they are filled with confidence that Jesus will not abandon this world on the threshold of its ruin: "I will be with you, I will give you a word for bearing witness to the faith... fear nothing; not a hair of your head will fall in vain..." So these are words not only about the world's last days, but also about the final, ultimate faithfulness of Jesus to His disciples.

As is evident, the division of the universe into the Kingdom and the outer darkness at the end of time reaches its logical completion, that final battle of the forces of light with the forces of darkness, about which not only Yahwists and Christians knew, but which some other spiritually sensitive people also sensed, and which was shown to John with his own eyes. The people of God in his vision, and the 144 thousand chosen ones symbolize the people of God, stand opposed to those who willingly or unwillingly find themselves on the side of the forces of darkness, supporting the two beasts mentioned in the book, from the sea and from the earth.

It would seem that this is not entirely fair: there is a difference between voluntary participation in a war on the side of the forces of darkness and involuntary participation, for example through weakness or ignorance. But in this case the situation turns out to be such that each person's choice is absolutely objective and absolutely significant. The picture shown to the apostle is still symbolic, and in historical reality the matter will hardly concern a clash of two armies, earthly or heavenly. In history and in a concrete biography everything is usually much more prosaic and ordinary, but therefore much clearer.

Everyone wages his own war, wins or loses his own battles, and at every concrete moment in a concrete battle everything is clear to each person. If, of course, the person truly wants this clarity. Even in an ordinary earthly war, the question of courage or cowardice, when it concerns an ordinary soldier, comes down not to understanding and awareness of all the grand strategic plans, one's own or the enemy's, but to how the person will act in the specific place where he has found himself. Whether he will do what he must, or evade it, with a plausible pretext or without one.

Such too is genuine spiritual life, made up not so much of high flights and deep experiences as of a sequence of the choices and decisions we make and accept every day. And as a rule, this concrete reality is clear to us, if only we want clarity. Therefore in that very last battle it will not be possible to end up on the wrong side by accident. And that means the choice will indeed be fully conscious and final. Even if someone does not want to choose and prefers to remain "like everyone else." For refusal to choose is also a choice. But not at all the Kingdom.