Scripture:
Reflection:
“Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions” (Luke 12:15)
What Matters Most to God—A Villanelle by Rita A. Simmons
Though our lives are undone by greed and fraud,
yet we grapple with some deep, unfulfilled need,
warned only to be rich in what matters to God.
But what is true gain in this place where we plod,
disgraced as we are from the time where we seed?
What is earth but plot after plot of greed and fraud
where a castle is craved for its glittering façade,
where payments are squeezed and invested with speed?
And yet we know that such riches don’t matter to God.
Let His Spirit then strike like a lightening rod,
re-claiming the lives that His dying had freed.
We were not meant to be servants of greed and fraud
but His children, together; there’s a path we must trod
though our footsteps can stagger, stray or stampede;
we walk in the riches that matter to God
Who emptied Himself for His creatures, poor and flawed,
fulfilling our lives with Communion and Creed.
Oh happy the faults of greed and fraud!
Redemption is rich in what matters to God.
(Meditation of the Day, Monday, October 21, 2019; Magnificat, October 2019, Vol. 21 No. 8, pp 337-338. Rita A. Simmons is an award-winning poet, and author of three books of poetry: Souls and the City, Bitterness and Sweet Love, and Greeting the Seasons.)
Carl Middleton is a theologian/ethicist and a member of the Passionist Family.