- \n
- One of the most important decisions we need to make \u2014 in life, but also as a resolution on a retreat \u2014 is whether we\u2019re going truly to live as Jesus lives or whether we\u2019re going to live the way everyone else does. Today Jesus tells us that to embrace him means to detach ourselves from worldly things. We cannot serve, he tells us, both God and mammon. We have to make a choice between God and money and the things money can buy, between serving God or serving the things of this world.<\/li>\n
- Yesterday Jesus told the Parable of the Unjust of Dishonest Steward, the employee of the rich man who was reported to him for squandering his property. He was given a chance to prepare the books before getting dismissed and he began to call in the debtors to the Master and reduce what they owed. What he was essentially doing was cutting out his commission, because the way commissions worked in the ancient world was that if you owed 50 measures of olive oil as rent as a tenant farmer, that\u2019s what you\u2019d owe the Master but the steward could add on another 20 or 50 or even 100 as his commission. Taxes worked the same way. One of the reasons why this steward was probably reported for squandering his master\u2019s property was because he was, like Fannie and Freddie 15 years ago, he was probably making terrible business deals, allowing people on the Master\u2019s fields who weren\u2019t producing and thereby squandering the Master\u2019s property. But after the Master in the parable saw what his dishonest steward had done, he surprisingly commended him for acting prudently, for seeking to save his life rather than to squeeze out some extra money. And Jesus drew a moral lesson for us all that immediately leads into today\u2019s Gospel: \u201cFor the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.\u201d<\/li>\n
- Jesus wants us to be as wise in the spiritual realm as greedy businessmen are in the material realm. He wants us to use every opportunity we have to grow spiritually as greedy businessmen would to make a profit. Jesus tells us to use all our material resources to \u201cmake friends,\u201d to care for the poor, so that when all earthly mammon turns out to be no more valuable than monopoly money, the poor will take care of us forever by vouching for our charity, for having been the recipients of our care when they were hungry, thirsty, naked, estranged, imprisoned or sick. Jesus calls us to be faithful and trustworthy in the “very little things” of using our material resources so that we can be entrusted with the “great things” and true wealth of his eternal kingdom.<\/li>\n
- But we have to make a choice and this choice is a hard one today, because as Pope Francis has been stressing since the beginning of his Pontificate, there is in our world today a renewed and \u201cferocious\u201d idolatry of money, a revitalization of the worship of the ancient golden calf, a consumerism that is, basically, consuming us and leading us to consume the weak and those on the extremes of life. He said that worship of mammon leads to a loss of faith in God and a loss of love for others. Idolatry of money leads to a hardening of the heart toward God and others. We begin to place our faith, hope and love in the things of this world. We put institutional concerns about spiritual ones. We begin to obsess about the bank accounts, houses, jewelry and other material things we\u2019ll leave to the next generation rather than the legacy of faith.\u00a0If we\u2019re truly going to encounter the Lord Jesus on his terms rather than ours, if we\u2019re really going to live a life together with him and say to him and to the whole world that he is our Messiah, that he is our Lord, that he is our Savior, that he is the Son of the Living God, then we need to believe in and act on his words. We need to make the choice to serve him rather than mammon. We need to make him the pearl of great price sacrificing everything else in our life to obtain. We need to make for him the choice that the Rich Young Man didn\u2019t, and that\u2019s to be faithful to him in using our material resources for the care of others so that we can be free to follow him, rather than choosing like he did, our stuff over our Savior.<\/li>\n
- In today\u2019s first reading, St. Paul praises the Philippians for doing just that, for sacrificing for him and for what he was doing. He said that he didn\u2019t need it, because he had learned how to go without, but he was \u201crejoicing greatly\u201d because of the \u201cprofit that accrues to your account.\u201d They were using the things of the world to advance the kingdom Paul was announcing. They were serving God with the material resources they had rather than using material resources for their own aggrandizement. In doing so, they were becoming rich in what matters to God. The wise man, God reminds us through today\u2019s psalm, \u201clavishly gives to the poor; his generosity shall endure for ever,\u201d because the poor are our bankers, and to give to them is essentially to give to God. That\u2019s what the Philippians were doing and that\u2019s why St. Paul was so happy, not because he wanted their mammon, but because he wanted their souls to use their mammon for God and others.\u00a0Making this conversion from the worship of stuff to the worship of God is difficult. It requires faith. But St. Paul seeks to strengthen us to make that act of faith, telling us today what he himself discovered, \u201cI can do all things in him who strengthens me.\u201d If we\u2019re attached to things, if we place our heart in a material treasure rather than lift our heart to God, God will give us the grace of conversion, because we too can do all things in the Lord who strengthens us.<\/li>\n
- Someone who shows us how to make this choice, someone who was faithful in things both small and great, someone who recognizes that in God nothing is impossible is Our Lady, whom we venerate in a special way on Saturday and who is interceding for all of us on this retreat. She chose to align her enter life according to God’s word as his handmade. She was poor in spirit because she placed her heart in the kingdom of God. She knew that the Lord exalts the poor, lifts up the humble, and never forgets his mercy, and she place her treasure there. Today as we prepare to receive the Blessed Fruit of her Womb, she is praying that we place in him our true treasure, as he from within seeks to make us strong.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
The readings for today\u2019s Mass were:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
\nReading 1\u00a0PHIL 4:10-19<\/a><\/h4>\n
Brothers and sisters:
\nI rejoice greatly in the Lord
\nthat now at last you revived your concern for me.
\nYou were, of course, concerned about me but lacked an opportunity.
\nNot that I say this because of need,
\nfor I have learned, in whatever situation I find myself,
\nto be self-sufficient.
\nI know indeed how to live in humble circumstances;
\nI know also how to live with abundance.
\nIn every circumstance and in all things
\nI have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry,
\nof living in abundance and of being in need.
\nI have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.
\nStill, it was kind of you to share in my distress.
\nYou Philippians indeed know that at the beginning of the Gospel,
\nwhen I left Macedonia,
\nnot a single church shared with me
\nin an account of giving and receiving, except you alone.
\nFor even when I was at Thessalonica
\nyou sent me something for my needs,
\nnot only once but more than once.
\nIt is not that I am eager for the gift;
\nrather, I am eager for the profit that accrues to your account.
\nI have received full payment and I abound.
\nI am very well supplied because of what I received from you
\nthrough Epaphroditus,
\n\u201ca fragrant aroma,\u201d an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.
\nMy God will fully supply whatever you need,
\nin accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nResponsorial Psalm\u00a0PS 112:1B-2, 5-6, 8A AND 9<\/a><\/h4>\n
R.\u00a0Blessed the man who fears the Lord.
\nor:
\nR.\u00a0Alleluia.
\nBlessed the man who fears the LORD,
\nwho greatly delights in his commands.
\nHis posterity shall be mighty upon the earth;
\nthe upright generation shall be blessed.
\nR.\u00a0Blessed the man who fears the Lord.
\nor:
\nR.\u00a0Alleluia.
\nWell for the man who is gracious and lends,
\nwho conducts his affairs with justice;
\nHe shall never be moved;
\nthe just one shall be in everlasting remembrance.
\nR.\u00a0Blessed the man who fears the Lord.
\nor:
\nR.\u00a0Alleluia.
\nHis heart is steadfast; he shall not fear.
\nLavishly he gives to the poor;
\nhis generosity shall endure forever;
\nhis horn shall be exalted in glory.
\nR.\u00a0Blessed the man who fears the Lord.
\nor:
\nR.\u00a0Alleluia.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nGospel\u00a0LK 16:9-15<\/a><\/h4>\n
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