Self-Righteous Overcompensation

We are all carrying within us deep-seated hurts and wounds from our childhood. When we were innocent and impressionable, we heard messages from our parents or peers that stuck with us. Or, someone did something to hurt us and the trauma of what happened continues to haunt us and influence the way we think and act.

For instance, we may have received the message from our parents that we were no good. It may have come across in the way they spoke to us or the way they punished us. For the rest of our lives, no matter how successful we become, we continue to hear that message echoing within us - “I’m no good”

Or we might have experienced some failure in our youth and been ridiculed or shamed for it. The memory of our parents’ disapproving faces or the taunting laughs of our classmates were seared into our consciousness. The message - “I am a failure” - stuck with us. No matter what we do, we cannot seem to shake the sense that it is not good enough.

Because of all those hurtful memories from our childhood, we spend our adult lives trying to prove that we are good enough and that we are not failures. We might become workaholics, striving for more and more success to disprove those negative images of ourselves. Or we might become underachievers, so afraid of failing that we are unwilling to take risks.

Whatever form those messages from our past might take, we can all fall into the trap of trying to prove our worth to ourselves and others by overcompensating for our inner sense of inadequacy.

In today’s gospel, we find such attempts at overcompensation on full display. The scribes were powerful men in Jesus’ day. They were teachers of the Law at a time when religion was prized highly by people. While many scribes were no doubt good men who truly cared about the people they served, many were not. They used their power to overcompensate for their own sense of inadequacy. The long robes they wore covered up their lack of self-worth. The places of honor compensated for the lack of recognition from their parents. Because of all the trappings of wealth and influence that were a part of their state in life, they did not know just how poor and powerless they really were.

Jesus is not fooled by their outward display and is quick to see through their charade. He condemns them for using religion as a means of gaining power rather than as a means of serving others.

How differently Jesus speaks about the poor widow. She did not have any of the trappings of wealth and influence that the scribes had. Yet, Jesus sees in her small donation given with total trust in God a greater gift than all the other donations combined.

Like all of us, that poor widow may have lived with memories of trauma and even abuse. She may have judged herself worthless at times and doubted whether she had anything to offer. Unlike the scribes, however, she did not try to overcompensate by enriching herself with this world’s goods or seeking success in worldly things. Rather, she chose to trust in God. She acknowledges her poverty and weakness and, by giving her last penny to the Temple treasury, she recognizes that God will take care of her. In her poverty and weakness, she turns to the One who can truly enrich and empower her - our Heavenly Father.

Throughout the Bible, God holds up the poor and the needy as those who have special insight into the mysteries of the spiritual life. The reason is that they do not look for earthly things to fill up the holes in their heart left by hurtful messages from their past. Rather, they look to their Heavenly Father who alone can heal those hurts.

All of us here today are carrying hidden wounds within us. We cannot change our past or erase the hurtful messages we heard. But we do have a choice as to how we will respond to them.

We can be like the scribes and put on a show for others thinking they will love and accept us because of our wealth and influence. We may end up impressing others and getting some relief from our pain. However, in the long run, we know it’s all an empty show and the feelings of inadequacy inevitably re-emerge.

The other choice we have is to bring those wounds to our Heavenly Father. We can pour out our hearts to Him telling Him how afraid, hurting and lost we are. When we hear the message, “you are no good,” we can call to mind that we were created good by our loving God. When we hear the message, “you are worthless”, we can remember that Jesus died to save us. When we hear the message, “you will never amount to anything,” we can remember that we are called to spend eternity with God in Heaven. Rather than try to overcompensate for our weakness by turning to this world, we can find our healing and completeness through union with our Heavenly Father.

If we do choose the way of the widow, the way of complete trust in God, we will start to look at our inner wounds in a different way. They will still continue to be painful but we will actually come to be grateful for them because they teach us how much we need God. They also help us to be compassionate with others who are also suffering. And like the widow in today’s first reading and in the gospel, our inner wounds teach us to be generous with others because we trust that God will never abandon us and will always provide for us.

No matter how our fathers on earth may have hurt us, we have a Father in Heaven who can heal us. No matter how deep-seated our pain may be, we have a Savior whose Spirit can reach right down to the core of our being to bring healing to those wounds. No matter how poor or powerless we may feel, we have a God who enriches and empowers us. Let us put aside, then, all those ways we try to overcompensate for our helpless and turn to God. He will not let us down. And we will finally find the rest our souls have been yearning for.