Friends, welcome to Word on Fire, Catholic Ministries. Word on Fire is an apostolate dedicated

to the mission of evangelization, using media both old and new to share the faith on every

continent and to facilitate and encounter with Christ and His Church. The efforts of

Word on Fire engage the culture and bring the transformative power of God's Word where

it is most needed. Today we invite you to join Bishop Robert Baron as he preaches

the gospel and shares the warmth and light of Christ with each of us.

Peace be with you. Friends, our readings for this weekend feature two widows.

Widows were in biblical times, especially vulnerable figures. This because there was no social

service network, there was no welfare system to care for those who had lost their means

of economic support. So in a society where women were not breadwinners in our sense,

widows, unless they had support from a wider family network, were extremely vulnerable.

That's why, by the way, the prophets talk so much about widows and orphans. You know,

God's great love for the widows and orphans are need to care for them. It's just their

way of saying the least and the most threatened, the most vulnerable. Well, in the first reading

we hear of the widow of Zerapheth and her confrontation with the prophet Elijah. It's

a great story, by the way, you find it in the first book of kings. We're talking about

the 9th century BC, a time when the wicked A-hab was the king of Israel and his idolatrous

wife, Jezebel was the queen. During this period a severe famine broke out. The result

Elijah claimed were the king's apostasy that God was punishing Israel for the idolatry

of the king. Well, as a consequence of the drought, this poor widow of Zerapheth and her

son are reduced to a desperate penury. They are quite literally down to their last meal.

What we're meant to think about here is someone who is about as low as you can go. A widow

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