"...For yet a very little while..." Sometimes we do not want to believe this, and we say: you are only comforting us, Apostle Paul. But before this Paul says: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!" (Heb. 10:31). And in the Greek text the word is "phoberon," which is somehow clearly associated with the Russian word "phobia." In Russian usage, phobia means precisely an inner painful state when there is no real external danger: just darkness or height, just an enclosed space, and so on. We have this inner state: we both want the End and fear it. Because of this uncertainty, because of our inner confusion, this End does not come.

For the Lord, as the Bridegroom, comes when love has been established. Imagine a bridegroom and bride who are preparing to be married, but the bride is afraid, unsure, wavering; she does not yet have that radiant, happy, calm love that longs to give itself in service to the beloved. Would their wedding be right in that case? Still, it would be premature.

In the same way, even if we speak only about the Church and its members, we do not yet have this deep, quiet, calm love. We still fear ourselves and frighten others. We fear punishment, vengeance, recompense; we simply fear, without ourselves knowing what, because "no one has ever returned from there." What kind of "wedding" (that is, the End) can we speak of?

But this does not mean that we are alone. We can say that we were "betrothed" by Christ's First Coming, and we need to build our relationship with Him. In any case, He is here, He is near. And of course, it is "a little while longer," because when there is love, time flows in a special way: separations are endless, meetings seem to fly by so quickly, and overall there is this feeling that there it is, just a little longer, and eternity will pour into the soul.

Today's passage offers us two images: the image of the scribes, who were used to honor and respect, and the image of a poor widow who gave to the Temple the last thing she had. At first glance, we have two different themes before us, with little connection to each other. And yet there is a connection between them, though it does not stand out at once. In essence, what is at issue here is wealth and poverty.

The point is not only that the "scribes," that is, the theologians and teachers of the Law, were usually people of means, which certainly cannot be said of the poor widow. In the Gospel, as in the Bible as a whole, poverty is considered first of all not as a material condition, but as a spiritual one. One of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament, Isaiah of Jerusalem, also considered himself "poor," even though he belonged to one of the finest aristocratic families of Jerusalem and was far from destitute. His followers as well, whom the Old Testament often calls "the poor," were apparently mostly people of moderate means. These people called themselves "poor" because they considered their only support in life to be not property and not social status, but God, to whom they entrusted themselves completely and without looking back, as though apart from God they truly had nothing else on which they could lean or grasp in a difficult moment.

And the poor widow, after giving to the Temple the last thing she had, acted in exactly the same way: her gift showed that she trusted God absolutely. It is different with those who gave only part of what they had: in that case another part of their savings remains, something they can always count on. Of course, such a gift also remains acceptable to God, but the fullness of trust is not yet there. The widow, by giving everything to God, showed Him precisely that full trust. It is just such poor people whom Jesus calls "blessed" in the Sermon on the Mount.

But wealth can be expressed not only in money or property. Knowledge, honor, social position: all of these are also a kind of wealth. And genuine Gospel poverty is impossible as long as the owner enjoys his wealth, which can take forms such as those seen in the scribes described in today's story, intoxicated by the signs of honor and respect shown to them by ordinary believers. The matter here, of course, is not knowledge or status in itself, nor even the sins that can be connected with it (the mention of "devouring widows' houses" in v. 40 is hardly accidental, especially considering that encroaching on the property of a widow or orphan is a direct violation of the Law that these people taught to others). The point is that knowledge and status obscure God for those who possess them, making them believe in something that is not actually there: their own righteousness and importance in God's eyes. And then one can hardly speak of the fullness of trust in God that Gospel poverty presupposes.

The memory that God sees us can give a person an amazing strength for life. That is exactly what matters in the episode at the temple treasury that Mark the Evangelist tells us about today. There are moments in our lives when no one appears to see us, and the things we do are done alone before God. In such moments it is important to remember that Jesus sees you. Still more important is how He looks at us.

The crowd passes by the treasury at the doors of the Temple. There is noise, the cries of sacrificial animals, the blare of trumpets... And Jesus sits and looks at people, at what they do when they think no one sees them. It is already a miracle of God's mercy that He is interested in looking at us. As the psalmist says: "What is man, that You are mindful of him?" And an even greater mercy is that He looks without any wish to rebuke or accuse, without any intent to sort the worthy from the unworthy.

And the main thing we see in this episode about the widow's mite is that He does not compare us with one another. He compares what each of us brings into the House of God with our own possibilities, not with other people.