Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 114
Reading 1 Ecc 1:2; 2:21-23 Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and yet to another who has not labored over it, he must leave property. This also is vanity and a great misfortune. For what profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun? All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation; even at night his mind is not at rest. This also is vanity. Responsorial Psalm Ps 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17 R. (1) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. You turn man back to dust, saying, “Return, O children of men.” For a thousand years in your sight are as yesterday, now that it is past, or as a watch of the night. R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. You make an end of them in their sleep; the next morning they are like the changing grass, Which at dawn springs up anew, but by evening wilts and fades. R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart. Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants! R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Fill us at daybreak with your kindness, that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days. And may the gracious care of the LORD our God be ours; prosper the work of our hands for us! Prosper the work of our hands! R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Reading 2 Col 3:1-5, 9-11 Brothers and sisters: If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.
Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry. Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all. Alleluia Mt 5:3 R. Alleluia, alleluia. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel Lk 12:13-21 Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Then he told them a parable. “There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. He asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?’ And he said, ‘This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”
In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus' teaching concerns, precisely, true wisdom and is introduced by one of the crowd: "Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me" (Lk 12: 13). In answering, Jesus puts him on guard against those who are influenced by the desire for earthly goods with the Parable of the Rich Fool who having put away for himself an abundant harvest stops working, uses up all he possesses, enjoying himself and even deceives himself into thinking he can keep death at an arm's length. However God says to him "Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" (Lk 12: 20). The fool in the Bible, the one who does not want to learn from the experience of visible things, that nothing lasts for ever but that all things pass away, youth and physical strength, amenities and important roles. Making one's life depend on such an ephemeral reality is therefore foolishness. The person who trusts in the Lord, on the other hand, does not fear the adversities of life, nor the inevitable reality of death: he is the person who has acquired a wise heart, like the Saints.
In addressing our prayer to Mary Most Holy, I would like to remember other important occasions: tomorrow it will be possible to profit from the Indulgence known as the Portiuncola Indulgence or the "Pardon of Assisi" that St Francis obtained in 1216 from Pope Honorius III; Thursday, 5 August, in commemorating the Dedication of the Basilica of St Mary Major, we will honour the Mother of God, acclaimed with this title at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and next Friday, the anniversary of Pope Paul VI's death, we will celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration. The date of 6 August, seen as crowned by summer light, was chosen to mean that the splendour of Christ's Face illuminates the whole world.
Today’s Gospel passage (cf. Lk 12:13-21) begins with the narrative of a man who stands up among the multitude and asks Jesus to settle a legal matter concerning a family inheritance. However, Jesus does not address the matter in his reply, but rather urges the people to eschew covetousness, that is, the greed of possession. In order to divert his listeners from this exhausting search for wealth, Jesus tells the parable of the foolish rich man who believes he is happy because he has had the good fortune to reap an exceptional harvest and he feels secure thanks to the goods he has accumulated. It would do you good to read it today; it is in the 12th Chapter of Saint Luke, verse 13. It is a beautiful parable that teaches us a great deal. The narrative comes to the fore in the contrast between what the rich man plans for himself and what God plans for him instead.
The rich man puts three considerations before his soul, that is, himself: the accumulated goods, the many years that these goods appear to ensure him, and thirdly tranquility and unrestrained enjoyment (cf v. 19). But the word that God addresses to him nullifies his plans. Instead of “many years”, God points to the immediacy of “this night; tonight you will die”. Instead of the “enjoyment of life”, He presents him with “surrendering his life; you will render your life to God” with the ensuing judgment. Regarding the reality of the ample goods accumulated on which the rich man had based everything, it becomes shrouded in sarcasm by the question: “and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (v. 20). Let us think about quarrels over inheritance, many family quarrels. And how many people; we all know some stories about many people, who turn up at the time of death: nephews, grandchildren come around to see: “what is my share?”, and they cart everything away. It is within this contrast that the term “fool” — because he thinks about things that he believes to be concrete but that are fantasy — with which God addresses this man, is justified. He is foolish because in practice he has denied God, he has not taken Him into account.
The end of the parable as recounted by the Evangelist is uniquely effective: “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (v. 21). It is a warning which reveals the horizon towards which we are called to look. Material goods are necessary — they are goods! —, but they are a means to live honestly and in sharing with the neediest. Today, Jesus invites us to consider that wealth can enslave the heart and distract it from the true treasure which is in heaven. Saint Paul also reminds us of this in today’s second reading. It says “seek the things that are above.... Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col 3:1-2).
It is understood that this does not mean estranging oneself from reality, but rather seeking the things that have true value: justice, solidarity, welcome, fraternity, peace, all things that make up the true dignity of mankind. It is a case of leading a life that is fulfilled not according to a worldly manner, but rather according to the style of the Gospel: to love God with all one’s being, and love one’s neighbour as Jesus loved him, that is, in service and in giving oneself. Covetousness of goods, the desire to have goods, does not satisfy the heart, but rather causes more hunger! Covetousness is like those tasty candies: you take one and say: “Ah! It is so good”, and then you take another; and one follows the other. Such is covetousness: it never satisfies. Be careful! Love that is understood and lived in [the style of the Gospel] is the source of true happiness, whereas the exaggerated search for material goods and wealth is often a source of anxiety, adversity, abuse of power, war. Many wars begin from covetousness.
May the Virgin Mary help us not to be attracted by forms of security that fade, but rather to be credible witnesses of the eternal values of the Gospel, each day.
FAUSTI - This parable describes the man who makes consist his own safety in the accumulation of goods . It is the opposite of the disciple whose safety is in the love of the Father and of the brothers. Our life is not in goods, but in the One who gives these to us. God's wisdom has foreseen that the satisfaction of needs that we have it become means to fill the need that we are: communion with the Father who gives and the brothers with whom we share. This is the realm of sons, our real treasure. If you don't accept your identity, you identify yourself with what you own. Instead of to serve yourself of the world as its lord , you serve it as your lord. To have more is the first clumsy attempt to save himself suggested by the fear of death. If you make depend your life by what you have, you destroy what you are. In fact the life is from the Father; for this you are the son and brother to all. If your life is from the things, He isn't Your Father any longer. Your Father and your brothers are your antagonist. And the same things that before were "by" God "for" you, these change meaning : you are "from" them and "for" them and you sacrifice your life to what have to guarantee it. What you have and own, it gives you death if you consider it as aim rather than means. You are slave of it and however much you possess,you will never be full, because other is the bread that feeds you. For deception man has abandoned the "fountain of living water, to dig broken cisterns that hold no water" (Jer 2:13): he has placed as a principle of one's own life the fear of the death, rather than the ' love of the Father' of life. The fruits of the ground are God's blessing (Deuteronomy 28). Those who receive them as a gift are blessed themselves Those who take them for a possession, they cut them from their source and ithey are cursed. To receive them as a gift means to employ them remembering that they are from the Father and for all the brothers. This concrete love of the Father and of the brothers, which espresses oneself , respectively, in praise and in mercy,it is the whole law. Whenever Israel will be living with the master spirit, Israel will go into exile. The forgetting of the gift is the path of exile; the memory and converting the return date. Moses warns the people, warning him not to say never "is my" what will be given to the promised land (Deut 8.7 to 20). Whoever wants to possess is actually possessed by what he possesses. He is no longer free, but a slave. Just as for Adam being in the garden is linked to obedience to God, so for Israel being in the promised land is linked concretely to not taking possession of the gift. God has ordered not to possess and not to accumulate, but to thank for the gift and to share. Obedience to His Word introduces one into rest (promised land), where one eats (lives), drinks (loves) and rejoices, because in satisfying primary needs one also satisfies the essential: the love of the Father and of one's brothers and sisters! Possession is contrary to thankfulness, and is against God; accumulation is contrary to sharing and is against men. The rich man, who aims to have more, isolates himself more and more from others and cages himself in his solitude. Foolishness is consumed in the complacency of goods, making them one's own life and safety. "Rest, eat, drink, enjoy": this is man's life program. Goods, in God's plan, would serve for this! But it is foolishness to believe that one can achieve it by following the path of having more. Foolishness consists in the fact that death is not avoided by what the fear of death has suggested. Fear is, in fact, bad counselor, and it throws into the arms of what is feared. The consciousness of death shows me my deepest being: my absolute solitude before Him, which can only be filled by Him, my rest, my food, my drink and my joy.
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
RispondiEliminaLectionary: 114
Reading 1
Ecc 1:2; 2:21-23
Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill,
and yet to another who has not labored over it,
he must leave property.
This also is vanity and a great misfortune.
For what profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart
with which he has labored under the sun?
All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation;
even at night his mind is not at rest.
This also is vanity.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17
R. (1) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
You turn man back to dust,
saying, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are as yesterday, now that it is past,
or as a watch of the night.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
You make an end of them in their sleep;
the next morning they are like the changing grass,
Which at dawn springs up anew,
but by evening wilts and fades.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Fill us at daybreak with your kindness,
that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.
And may the gracious care of the LORD our God be ours;
prosper the work of our hands for us!
Prosper the work of our hands!
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Reading 2
Col 3:1-5, 9-11
Brothers and sisters:
If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died,
and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and the greed that is idolatry.
Stop lying to one another,
since you have taken off the old self with its practices
and have put on the new self,
which is being renewed, for knowledge,
in the image of its creator.
Here there is not Greek and Jew,
circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, slave, free;
but Christ is all and in all.
Alleluia
Mt 5:3
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Lk 12:13-21
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves
but are not rich in what matters to God.”
BENEDICT XVI . ANGELUS
RispondiEliminaSunday, 1st August 2010
In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus' teaching concerns, precisely, true wisdom and is introduced by one of the crowd: "Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me" (Lk 12: 13). In answering, Jesus puts him on guard against those who are influenced by the desire for earthly goods with the Parable of the Rich Fool who having put away for himself an abundant harvest stops working, uses up all he possesses, enjoying himself and even deceives himself into thinking he can keep death at an arm's length. However God says to him "Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" (Lk 12: 20). The fool in the Bible, the one who does not want to learn from the experience of visible things, that nothing lasts for ever but that all things pass away, youth and physical strength, amenities and important roles. Making one's life depend on such an ephemeral reality is therefore foolishness. The person who trusts in the Lord, on the other hand, does not fear the adversities of life, nor the inevitable reality of death: he is the person who has acquired a wise heart, like the Saints.
In addressing our prayer to Mary Most Holy, I would like to remember other important occasions: tomorrow it will be possible to profit from the Indulgence known as the Portiuncola Indulgence or the "Pardon of Assisi" that St Francis obtained in 1216 from Pope Honorius III; Thursday, 5 August, in commemorating the Dedication of the Basilica of St Mary Major, we will honour the Mother of God, acclaimed with this title at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and next Friday, the anniversary of Pope Paul VI's death, we will celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration. The date of 6 August, seen as crowned by summer light, was chosen to mean that the splendour of Christ's Face illuminates the whole world.
POPE FRANCIS
RispondiEliminaANGELUS Sunday, 4 August 2019
Today’s Gospel passage (cf. Lk 12:13-21) begins with the narrative of a man who stands up among the multitude and asks Jesus to settle a legal matter concerning a family inheritance. However, Jesus does not address the matter in his reply, but rather urges the people to eschew covetousness, that is, the greed of possession. In order to divert his listeners from this exhausting search for wealth, Jesus tells the parable of the foolish rich man who believes he is happy because he has had the good fortune to reap an exceptional harvest and he feels secure thanks to the goods he has accumulated. It would do you good to read it today; it is in the 12th Chapter of Saint Luke, verse 13. It is a beautiful parable that teaches us a great deal. The narrative comes to the fore in the contrast between what the rich man plans for himself and what God plans for him instead.
The rich man puts three considerations before his soul, that is, himself: the accumulated goods, the many years that these goods appear to ensure him, and thirdly tranquility and unrestrained enjoyment (cf v. 19). But the word that God addresses to him nullifies his plans. Instead of “many years”, God points to the immediacy of “this night; tonight you will die”. Instead of the “enjoyment of life”, He presents him with “surrendering his life; you will render your life to God” with the ensuing judgment. Regarding the reality of the ample goods accumulated on which the rich man had based everything, it becomes shrouded in sarcasm by the question: “and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (v. 20). Let us think about quarrels over inheritance, many family quarrels. And how many people; we all know some stories about many people, who turn up at the time of death: nephews, grandchildren come around to see: “what is my share?”, and they cart everything away. It is within this contrast that the term “fool” — because he thinks about things that he believes to be concrete but that are fantasy — with which God addresses this man, is justified. He is foolish because in practice he has denied God, he has not taken Him into account.
The end of the parable as recounted by the Evangelist is uniquely effective: “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (v. 21). It is a warning which reveals the horizon towards which we are called to look. Material goods are necessary — they are goods! —, but they are a means to live honestly and in sharing with the neediest. Today, Jesus invites us to consider that wealth can enslave the heart and distract it from the true treasure which is in heaven. Saint Paul also reminds us of this in today’s second reading. It says “seek the things that are above.... Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col 3:1-2).
It is understood that this does not mean estranging oneself from reality, but rather seeking the things that have true value: justice, solidarity, welcome, fraternity, peace, all things that make up the true dignity of mankind. It is a case of leading a life that is fulfilled not according to a worldly manner, but rather according to the style of the Gospel: to love God with all one’s being, and love one’s neighbour as Jesus loved him, that is, in service and in giving oneself. Covetousness of goods, the desire to have goods, does not satisfy the heart, but rather causes more hunger! Covetousness is like those tasty candies: you take one and say: “Ah! It is so good”, and then you take another; and one follows the other. Such is covetousness: it never satisfies. Be careful! Love that is understood and lived in [the style of the Gospel] is the source of true happiness, whereas the exaggerated search for material goods and wealth is often a source of anxiety, adversity, abuse of power, war. Many wars begin from covetousness.
May the Virgin Mary help us not to be attracted by forms of security that fade, but rather to be credible witnesses of the eternal values of the Gospel, each day.
FAUSTI - This parable describes the man who makes consist his own safety in the accumulation of goods . It is the opposite of the disciple whose safety is in the love of the Father and of the brothers.
RispondiEliminaOur life is not in goods, but in the One who gives these to us.
God's wisdom has foreseen that the satisfaction of needs that we have it become means to fill the need that we are: communion with the Father who gives and the brothers with whom we share. This is the realm of sons, our real treasure.
If you don't accept your identity, you identify yourself with what you own.
Instead of to serve yourself of the world as its lord , you serve it as your lord.
To have more is the first clumsy attempt to save himself suggested by the fear of death.
If you make depend your life by what you have, you destroy what you are.
In fact the life is from the Father; for this you are the son and brother to all.
If your life is from the things, He isn't Your Father any longer.
Your Father and your brothers are your antagonist. And the same things that before were "by" God "for" you, these change meaning : you are "from" them and "for" them and you sacrifice your life to what have to guarantee it.
What you have and own, it gives you death if you consider it as aim rather than means.
You are slave of it and however much you possess,you will never be full, because other is the bread that feeds you.
For deception man has abandoned the "fountain of living water, to dig broken cisterns that hold no water" (Jer 2:13): he has placed as a principle of one's own life the fear of the death, rather than the ' love of the Father' of life.
The fruits of the ground are God's blessing (Deuteronomy 28).
Those who receive them as a gift are blessed themselves
Those who take them for a possession, they cut them from their source and ithey are cursed.
To receive them as a gift means to employ them remembering that they are from the Father and for all the brothers.
This concrete love of the Father and of the brothers, which espresses oneself , respectively, in praise and in mercy,it is the whole law.
Whenever Israel will be living with the master spirit, Israel will go into exile.
The forgetting of the gift is the path of exile; the memory and converting the return date.
Moses warns the people, warning him not to say never "is my" what will be given to the promised land (Deut 8.7 to 20).
Whoever wants to possess is actually possessed by what he possesses. He is no longer free, but a slave.
Just as for Adam being in the garden is linked to obedience to God, so for Israel being in the promised land is linked concretely to not taking possession of the gift. God has ordered not to possess and not to accumulate, but to thank for the gift and to share.
Obedience to His Word introduces one into rest (promised land), where one eats (lives), drinks (loves) and rejoices, because in satisfying primary needs one also satisfies the essential: the love of the Father and of one's brothers and sisters!
Possession is contrary to thankfulness, and is against God; accumulation is contrary to sharing and is against men. The rich man, who aims to have more, isolates himself more and more from others and cages himself in his solitude. Foolishness is consumed in the complacency of goods, making them one's own life and safety.
"Rest, eat, drink, enjoy": this is man's life program.
Goods, in God's plan, would serve for this!
But it is foolishness to believe that one can achieve it by following the path of having more.
Foolishness consists in the fact that death is not avoided by what the fear of death has suggested. Fear is, in fact, bad counselor, and it throws into the arms of what is feared.
The consciousness of death shows me my deepest being: my absolute solitude before Him, which can only be filled by Him, my rest, my food, my drink and my joy.