Scripture:
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23
Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11
Luke 12:13-21
Reflection:
What do we labour for? What is our deeper motivation, and what gives us the capacity to persist and achieve all that we have set out to do and be in life?
Perhaps these more profound questions underlie the texts we have today.
The late Pope Francis once reminded people that ‘the devil usually enters our life through our pockets’, indicating that temptations to wealth and all that goes with possession of money might offer an easy access point to greater compromises and failings in our lives.
That seems to speak to the original setting that inspires Jesus to proclaim the parable we hear today. Two brothers are arguing about inheritance. Sadly, a reality that can affect any partnership or family system. However, is the reality of this argument being pursued in public, and overriding all other considerations – including privacy, decency, love for a sibling, self-restraint, personal pride, and resilience, as well as the capacity to negotiate – all these values and gifts are being overshadowed by the desire for wealth?
In light of this public spectacle, Jesus proclaims a parable with its shock value. Accumulation of wealth (and excess), if this is one’s life project, is very short-sighted and, while it might ‘fill’ our barns, measured against eternal values, it is in reality an ‘empty’ and wasted endeavour.
Becoming rich in the sight of God is a far better and deeper goal to pursue. The refrain from our responsorial psalm points us in the true direction. We are reminded to listen for the voice of the Lord and follow the inner wisdom that God implants in our very being. We are encouraged not to harden our hearts and to seek Christ and his way above all else.
Fr. Denis Travers, C.P., is the Provincial Superior of Holy Spirit Province, Australia.