She Gave All She Had

Today, the Church honors St. Andrew Dung-Lac and the 116 Vietnamese martyrs—bishops, priests, religious, and lay faithful—who gave everything for the sake of Christ. Their story is one of radical fidelity. They were pressured to trample on the crucifix, to renounce the Cross as a condition for safety and survival. But they refused. They held fast to Christ even at the cost of their lives. Their witness echoes the woman in today’s Gospel, who placed two small coins in the treasury—an offering so insignificant in human eyes, yet immense in Jesus’ eyes because it came from the depths of her heart. “She, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.” She held nothing back. The readings invite us into this mystery of total self-giving. In the first reading, Daniel and his companions stood firm in a foreign land. They resisted the pressures to conform, choosing fidelity over comfort, obedience to God over assimilation to the empire. God honored their courage, granting them wisdom, strength, and favor. Their commitment flowed not from abundance but from conviction, not from ease but from sacrifice. St. Andrew Dung-Lac and his companions embodied this same spirit. Their martyrdom was not a pursuit of suffering but a testimony of love—love strong enough to withstand torture, imprisonment, separation, and death. Like the poor widow, they offered what the world could not see but what heaven immediately recognized: their whole hearts. Today, Jesus stands before each of us and asks: What do you give—your surplus or your life? Not only in material offerings, but in time, faithfulness, forgiveness, patience, compassion, and courage. The widow’s two coins reveal a truth the martyrs understood deeply: God does not measure what we give by quantity but by the love and trust we place in the giving. True faith is not convenience—it is surrender. It is choosing Christ when everything in the world urges us to choose otherwise. In our daily lives, “giving all we have” may not mean bloodshed, but it will mean sacrifice: choosing virtue when it is hard, holding onto hope when it seems unreasonable, loving when it costs us something, staying faithful when we feel empty, forgiving when everything in us resists. These are the quiet martyrdoms of the heart. As we honor St. Andrew Dung-Lac and companions, may we receive the grace to give God not our leftovers but our lives. May we learn the courage of Daniel, the generosity of the widow, and the steadfast love of the martyrs. And may Christ, who sees the hidden gifts of the heart, look at us today and say, “You too have given all you had.”