32nd Sunday in Ordinary time
Readings:
1 Kings 17:10-16
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44
Reflection:
Lilian Shearing’s 104-year life spanned three centuries, born in 1899 and passing in 2003. Lilian could be described as the one who would give all she could, no matter the cost to herself. Each day she would wake wondering just how many people needed her to do something for them. If a neighbour would drop fresh eggs on her doorstop, 80-year-old Lilian would say, “Oh that lady must want me to make her a sponge cake!”
I had glandular fever when I was six months old in the middle of a heat wave in Adelaide. Lilian came over to help mum and dad and would always proudly say that she had nursed me back to health – “I think I saved your life dear,” she would often say.
Lilian was Dad’s mum’s mum, and we had a bond that not even death could break. Her husband had died six months before I was born, and I think she always felt that there must’ve been a little bit of him in me. The love we shared was deep and she died when I was 27. The last person to see her alive, I had visited her only four hours before she died on the 1st of September. She was an avid rose lover, and of course she had waited for spring.
Lilian, my great grandmother, a generous spirit, a widow, would never have hesitated to bake a scone with the last of her flour and give it to a person in need – in fact, I reckon she would’ve given them the whole loaf. As for her two last copper coins, I’m pretty sure she would’ve thrown her purse in as well. This November, blessings be upon all those Lilians who have either gone before us or remain in our midst today.
Angela Marquis works for the Passionists at St Joseph’s in Tasmania, and with WATAC (Women and the Australian Church), and is a founding member of the Australian Women Preach organising team.