Finally, a great means of developing love for God, uniting with Him directly and making one feel the sweetness of this unity, is sincere, heartfelt prayer.

Chapter XII, pp. 35-44

This passage of the Gospel contains three sections, three themes apparently little connected with each other.

Verses 35-37 contain the idea, based on the 109th Psalm of David, that Christ the Messiah is God.

Verses 38-40 contain a warning against the spiritual leaders of Israel, the scribes and Pharisees, and an indication of their major vices.

Verses 41-44 tell the story of a poor widow who put two mites into the treasury of the temple.

Despite the external disconnection of the narrative, there is an undoubted internal connection between these three sections.

Having determined on the basis of the Old Testament commandments the essence of religious life and the main duty of man – love for God, the Lord further shifts the thought of His listeners to the fact that the Messiah, promised by the prophets, is also God, and therefore boundless love for Him and devotion on the part of man is an indispensable duty of the latter. The scribes, speaking of the Messiah, most often had in mind His human origin and the mention of Him mainly as a descendant of David. This flattered their pride and self-love, for they also saw in themselves relatives in the flesh of the Great Messiah, but, on the other hand, it weakened the religious feeling of reverence for Him as for God, transferring Him to the realm of ordinary human relations of kindred love. Meanwhile, even for David, the forefather of Christ, the Messiah was first of all Lord and God, before Whom the king and psalmist bowed with a feeling of religious reverence. The Lord reminds His listeners of this, warning them against the mistake of the scribes. The unspoken, presumptive answer to the Savior's question should be this: Yes, Christ the Messiah is the Son and descendant of David by human nature, but He is God by His essence. Here, perhaps, for the first time, the Lord gives His disciples and people a hint, albeit not a direct one, that He is not an ordinary man, but a God-man. It is doubtful, however, that any of the people fully understood Him, and it is possible that only a few of His disciples only vaguely penetrate into this mystery.

If Christ is God, then first of all those who considered themselves the leaders of the people and stood guard over their spiritual life, that is, the scribes and priests, should have understood this. They were the first to recognize the Lord Jesus as the Savior and Messiah and to treat Him with the love that befits God.

But they did not want to and could not do this, and the main reason was that there was no sincere desire and love for God in their hearts. They loved only themselves, they loved the honor, the glory, the respect of the crowd, they loved the material benefits of life, and all their service to God was hypocritical, calculated only to be valued and honored by people. With such a heart, they could not draw near to God, guess the divine personality of the Savior and love Him undivided as God. Therefore, heavy condemnation was inevitable for them.

Much closer to God were simple, poor people, but who loved Him with all their hearts. The poor widow, who gave her last codrant to the temple, was infinitely higher than these arrogant, hypocritical, proud, self-confident scribes, and it is she who the Lord sets up as an example to His disciples, for with the codrant she also gave her heart.

Such is the inner connection of the themes of this Gospel passage.

All of them are united by one basic idea – the need for sincere, heartfelt service to Christ.

The main obstacle to such service is those vices which the Lord notes in the scribes, against which He warns His listeners, and which may be called the chief vices of the heart, in the presence of which the Christian life is impossible, for they nullify and condemn to fruitlessness all the attempts and efforts of the pious will.