“Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
16…The floor of their houses had no slabs or tiles…much less, marble or ceramic tiles, their’s was a very primitive floor; earth and soil beaten and smoothed out. Let me refer you to St.Luke, Chapter 15: 8 – 10, the ‘Lost Groat’ or ‘Silver piece’. This is one of the Parables narrated by Jesus. “If a woman has ten silver pieces and loses one of them…”. Now, to begin with…what were the ten silver pieces? The ten silver pieces were part of the ‘dowry’ given by the father to his daughter on marriage…..they must have been of some value. Next question is this: Where did the women keep these coins? In a drawer, in a box, in a jewellery box? Absolutely ‘No’.
The answer casts an amount of light on the customs of the Jews. The women used to keep these pieces tied round their head, and, naturally showing on their forehead. Yes, they were used as a decoration, sort of to beautify the face, but there was a more serious reason for keeping them on her person, night and day.The reason for not taking them off for the night, and hiding them somewhere, was because, according to their Laws, the husband could, at any time send away his wife, divorce her, and she had to leave the house, there and then.
That means she had to leave with whatever she had on regarding clothes or jewellery. The social status of women in those days was rock bottom. In fact it was Jesus (not the English or Americans) who first started the ‘movement’ of emancipating women in society; a subject to be treated later on.
When a ‘dowry coin’ was lost, it was considered as something very shameful, in fact the woman used to keep very secretive from her husband, because that was tantamount to crime.
We can imagine the headache caused to the woman looking for a coin on a floor consisting of earth, dust and soil. It was almost impossible to find the coin. We have to keep in mind the fact that their room had only one small window, placed high up on one wall for fear of burglars breaking in, so the light inside the room would have been minimal. But she did her utmost, she swept, persisted, and I suppose prayed, and succeeded in finding it.
In this Parable, the Church is personified by the ‘woman’ who received her dowry, as the Church’s precious dowry are the faithful who make up the Church. The ‘light’, which the woman lit personifies the Word of God. Because it is with the help of the Word of God that we find our way in life. The silver coin, is the sinner; he is ‘silver’, because though he is a sinner, yet in God’s eyes he is still precious…but he got lost because of his irresponsible behavior. This Parable shows us the ‘seeking’ love of God. /17
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