Worldly Riches

My dear Friends in Christ,

In today’s First Reading from Ecclesiastes, we hear that the pursuit of worldly riches is vanity because in the end we have to let them go. We come into this world with nothing and we leave this world with nothing even though many people spend their whole lives acquiring things in excess. This Old Testament reading sets us up for the Gospel reading from Luke, which begins when a man comes to Jesus complaining that his brother hasn’t divided the inheritance equally with him. Jesus tells us the parable of a wealthy man who has such a big crop that it no longer fits into his barns. His solution is to tear everything down and build bigger barns so he can store up his great abundance of wealth. But God comes to the rich man at night and tells him that he will die and not enjoy the wealth that he has acquired. Jesus ends the story by telling us that this will be our fate if we follow in the rich man’s footsteps. Acquiring wealth is vanity if we acquire it just for ourselves since nothing we build or save up in this world will last forever. Jesus tells us that there are things we can do in this life to achieve our salvation. If the man in the Gospel will distribute his extra wealth to the needy, he would find treasure in heaven. How do we deal with our excess? Do we give that little extra to the needy or to the Annual Catholic Appeal? Are we willing to invest in that which will have an eternal reward?

May God bless you all,

Father John