Today’s
three readings can all be summarized in what Jesus says in our Gospel
today: “one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
And while, to us, that may sound strange, because our entire lives are made up of possessions, things we have, things we need and things we want, in the end, none of that matters when, as our Gospel reminds, we are forced to look at our lives differently, when we remind ourselves that we are not here forever.
And while, to us, that may sound strange, because our entire lives are made up of possessions, things we have, things we need and things we want, in the end, none of that matters when, as our Gospel reminds, we are forced to look at our lives differently, when we remind ourselves that we are not here forever.
In
fact, this
man in the parable had a rich and bountiful harvest and he
stopped at nothing to make sure it was all taken care of, storing up
his great treasures here on earth. And, when he had finished, he came
to see that it was all in vain, that everything he had he was going
to lose that very night, he came to realize the hard truth that, in
the end, “you can’t take it with you.”
And, that is the point, this man was so concerned with what he owned that he never once gave thanks for having owned it, he never once turned to God in thanksgiving. In fact, there is no mention of God in this man’s life at all. He was more attached to the things he had acquired and more concerned with maintaining them to the detriment and well being of his own spiritual life and his own soul.
And, that is the point, this man was so concerned with what he owned that he never once gave thanks for having owned it, he never once turned to God in thanksgiving. In fact, there is no mention of God in this man’s life at all. He was more attached to the things he had acquired and more concerned with maintaining them to the detriment and well being of his own spiritual life and his own soul.
In
fact, his was a life that our first reading portrays quite well, the
vanity of vanities, which translated from its original Hebrew is
equivalent to a breath, a vapor, a “chase after the wind.” For,
in the end, for this man, he got distracted from what is important,
from what has true worth for those things that are passing and
fleeting.
Of course, this is not to say that wealth is bad, nor owning possessions evil, but rather they need to be viewed as a means to an end rather than an end in themselves, or put simply, we are to look towards the treasures we have stored up in Heaven, and how many we actually have, just as the saints did every day of their lives, rather than looking at the treasures we have here on earth.
Because the point is not the possession, nor the fact that we own it, rather, it is something more. It is a warning against what we see in commercials constantly, being so taken up by what we have that our possessions begin to possess us. That is why, as St. Paul put it, in our second reading, we are to, instead: “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.”
Recently, people have started to follow the Marie Kondo way of decluttering your life, whereby, you thank the object you have and then get rid of it, but I once heard someone make a better recommendation, that we should go through our things and thank God for every single one of them and then offer them back to Him so that we might look at them in a new way, and see in them, from the smallest tube of toothpaste to the TV we watch, to the computer we use, to our cell phone, a blessing and an opportunity to give God the thanks He is due.
Because, every single day God gives us so much to be thankful for, He gives us so much of what we need that, in our desire for looking for what we don’t need, we sometimes miss what is placed right before us.
Jesus puts it well, He said we must be rich in what matters to God. And, by doing so, we will come see that the greatest treasures in life are, indeed, those for which there is no price tag, for those which cannot be held in our hands but, rather, stored in our hearts.
Sometimes in my homily to married couples and First Communicants, I remind them that no matter the great gifts they have been given, in time they will break, stop working, rust, rip or deteriorate, but the gift they leave with from this altar, the great gift of the Most Holy Eucharist, the great gift of God Himself, the great graces He wishes to bestow, will last a lifetime.
Of course, this is not to say that wealth is bad, nor owning possessions evil, but rather they need to be viewed as a means to an end rather than an end in themselves, or put simply, we are to look towards the treasures we have stored up in Heaven, and how many we actually have, just as the saints did every day of their lives, rather than looking at the treasures we have here on earth.
Because the point is not the possession, nor the fact that we own it, rather, it is something more. It is a warning against what we see in commercials constantly, being so taken up by what we have that our possessions begin to possess us. That is why, as St. Paul put it, in our second reading, we are to, instead: “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.”
Recently, people have started to follow the Marie Kondo way of decluttering your life, whereby, you thank the object you have and then get rid of it, but I once heard someone make a better recommendation, that we should go through our things and thank God for every single one of them and then offer them back to Him so that we might look at them in a new way, and see in them, from the smallest tube of toothpaste to the TV we watch, to the computer we use, to our cell phone, a blessing and an opportunity to give God the thanks He is due.
Because, every single day God gives us so much to be thankful for, He gives us so much of what we need that, in our desire for looking for what we don’t need, we sometimes miss what is placed right before us.
Jesus puts it well, He said we must be rich in what matters to God. And, by doing so, we will come see that the greatest treasures in life are, indeed, those for which there is no price tag, for those which cannot be held in our hands but, rather, stored in our hearts.
Sometimes in my homily to married couples and First Communicants, I remind them that no matter the great gifts they have been given, in time they will break, stop working, rust, rip or deteriorate, but the gift they leave with from this altar, the great gift of the Most Holy Eucharist, the great gift of God Himself, the great graces He wishes to bestow, will last a lifetime.
And,
the same is true with us, so, that each time we come to Mass we see
the true worth of what we own overshadowed by the true worth of what
we have, so that those little treasures we have in this world become
merely a means to store up true treasure in Heaven making us
incredibly rich in what truly and only matters, those things that
matter most
to God.
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