16.

Do we wish to know what widows ought to be? Let us read the gospel according to Luke. “There was one Anna,” he says, “a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Aser.” ¹ The meaning of the name Anna is grace. Phanuel is in our tongue the face of God. Aser may be translated either as blessedness or as wealth. From her youth up to the age of fourscore and four years she had borne the burden of widowhood, not departing from the temple and giving herself to fastings and prayers night and day; therefore she earned spiritual grace, received the title ‘daughter of the face of God,’ ² and obtained a share in the ‘blessedness and wealth’ ³ which belonged to her ancestry. Let us recall to mind the widow of Zarephath ⁴ who thought more of satisfying Elijah’s hunger than of preserving her own life and that of her son. Though she believed that she and he must die that very night unless they had food, she determined that her guest should survive. She preferred to sacrifice her life rather than to neglect the duty of almsgiving. In her handful of meal she found the seed from which she was to reap a harvest sent her by the Lord. She sows her meal and lo! a cruse of oil comes from it. In the land of Judah grain was scarce for the corn of wheat had died there; ⁵ but in the house of a heathen widow oil flowed in streams. In the book of Judith—if any one is of opinion that it should be received as canonical—we read of a widow wasted with fasting and wearing the sombre garb of a mourner, whose outward squalor indicated not so much the regret which she felt for her dead husband as the temper ⁶ in which she looked forward to the coming of the Bridegroom. I see her hand armed with the sword and stained with blood. I recognize the head of Holofernes which she has carried away from the camp of the enemy. Here a woman vanquishes men, and chastity beheads lust. Quickly changing her garb, she puts on once more in the hour of victory her own mean dress finer than all the splendours of the world. ⁷