The Woman of Zarephath

Love, there where you are and entrust God with your worries.

I dedicate these few lines to you, my friend, who is trying to find your way in your night wanderings.

In the times of the prophet Elijah, the sins of the ruling class, and the people’s selfishness closes the sky, and poverty and despair enshroud the nation.

In this helpless world, the widow of Zarephath from Sidon is a wonderful beacon of love. She is a young, roughly twenty-year-old, widow with a single young child. Instead of sinking into herself and helplessly awaiting her doom, she lights twigs to bake her last piece of bread.

Let us picture her. She’s standing there on the side of the road, this simple, pretty, young woman, who lost her husband, doesn’t have anyone or anything, and is preparing to die with her child. And now somebody, anybody, arrives. It is a troubled, hungry man who asks in the name of God that she hand over her last bite of bread, that she relinquish the morsel that means the life of her most cherished son and herself. She has to choose between life and love!!!!

It had to be amazing for the prophet Elijah to see this infinite goodness. That this young, pure soul kneads her last handful of flour, lights a fire, bakes the loaf, humbly hands over to him, the unknown stranger, the bite of bread and its contents, which symbolize all the reasons why so many wars ravaged the earth: survival, material gain, and everything.

This woman had to choose between life and love, and she sided with love. She is the bearer of mercy, love, goodness, and a deep faith. Maybe, this unknown woman’s goodness and love opens the sky and saves that day’s Sodom from destruction.

Does our present-day world have its own daughters and sons of Zarephath?

I would like to share two stories with you:

One of our children clings to his father, a large, rough gypsy man. I admired this love, and on one occasion I asked where this affection comes from. This ten-year-old girl shared a very interesting story: At age four she accidentally burned herself with boiling water, and the father desperately ran with her to the hospital. They accepted the girl and honorably cared for her, but the father had to stay outside the hospital. The little girl explained how she was crying upstairs at the window while he was crying outside. The father went home and boiled some water and stuck his hand into the boiling water. Thus, in a few minutes he could be there next to his daughter in the hospital. Even though they were in different rooms because of their varying ages, he still had opportunities to care for his daughter.

The other day I was visiting a family with several children. The children live in our children’s home, but they spend part of their summer vacation at home. This family lives in a small garage. The parents let the children sleep on the only bed while they sleep outside on a simple couch. The father shamefully tries to explain his poverty by saying that, after all, the air is better out in the open, but the problem is that a late August dew totally drenches their sheets and hair.

These people found themselves in extreme situations, and they had to choose between love and their own safety, comfort, and interests. In their simplicity and poverty, they chose love.

I believe that our world is not formed and saved by the rulers and influential people, but by the simple widows of Zarephath, who with their own unknown heroism, maybe only with a bite of bread, prove that mankind carries the wonderful characteristics of the children of God, despite all of its sins.

When sin, selfishness, and indifference becomes powerful in our lives or in the world and even the sky becomes dark, neither political analysis, nor desperately falling into ourselves, nor falling into panic is the solution. Rather, it is merciful love, goodness, unselfish solidarity, and an infinite faith in God’s mercy. Yes: love, there where you are and entrust God with your worries.

This is the only road that can lead us out of our sinful, broken world. Whatever happens, whether we are mortally wounded by our own or other’s sins or can’t see our way out from a horrible sickness, there where we are, let us begin to love with contrite hearts and humility those who have the greatest need for our love. And let us humbly trust in the One who saw it good to create us and welcome us into his Kingdom.

Love,

Böjte Csaba ofm