Avarice

Monday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 17 (16):6, 8 To you I call; for you will surely heed me, O God; turn your ear to me; hear my words. Guard me as the apple of your eye; in the shadow of your wings protect me.

Collect Almighty ever‑living God, grant that we may always conform our will to yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Ephesians 2:1-10; Psalm 99; Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. Jesus replied, Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you? Then he said to them, Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And he told them this parable: The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God. (Luke 12:13-21)

Avarice Notice what happened to the very good young man who, having met our Lord, was loved by him in a special way (Mark 10:17-22). This man approached our Lord with the best of questions: What must I do to inherit eternal life? He, a young man at the start of his life, had already understood the overriding importance of getting to heaven. This is real success, and it often takes the wisdom of many years to grasp this. But this individual, still young, had attained this insight already. It may be remembered that the Sadducees did not accept the resurrection from the dead – but not so with this young man. Further, he was very rich (10: 22). One may have expected that, being very rich, he would have settled into a view of life that looked to material prosperity and abundance as the only real thing to possess. But not so with this young man – he had his riches and appreciated them, but still, he truly wanted to attain eternal life. Further, he declared honestly that he had kept God’s commandments from his youth (12:20). He was an exceptionally good young man and lived in the fear of God. To crown it all, with this brief introductory dialogue with our Lord over, our Lord looked on him and loved him. This is a very singular statement. We are told in the Gospel of St John that Jesus loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus. John the Evangelist, brother of James, was the “disciple Jesus loved”. St Paul writes that Christ loved me and gave himself up for me. This rich young man was given a very special grace: the gift of a very personal love by Jesus. Of course, Jesus loved all but there was something special about the gift of his love for this young man because it is specifically recorded. He had the makings and the call to be a saint and a special follower of the Master. His feast day could have been celebrated each year of the Liturgical Year till the end of time – who knows! Christ invited him to something very special. Go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me – if you wish to be perfect! It seems that Christ discerned in the young man’s simple questions that he really yearned for moral and spiritual perfection, for he had asked, what more must I do? He was an exceptional young man and Christ bestowed on him his special love in an extraordinary call. One is even reminded of the call of St Francis of Assisi.

But what happened? It came to nothing, for this good young man with such great promise and a very concrete opportunity to fulfill his best yearnings turned away from it sad. Imagine the scene! In a sense, Jesus Christ had taken a risk. He had offered a golden opportunity to a young man (John the brother of James is thought to have been very young too – they may have been roughly the same age). Would he take it? A lot hung in the balance during but a few seconds, during but a moment. The decision was taken and it was tragic. Imagine the disappointment which filled the heart of the incarnate Son of God who had just given his special love to this young man. He watched him silently go – the young man was sad and so was Christ, but for different reasons. The young man disappears from history. Let us presume he saved his soul but it was tragic in its unfulfilled promise. Why did this tragedy happen? It happened because the young man had great wealth – meaning that his heart had become so attached to it that he preferred it to the call of Jesus Christ. I suggest that this case may be regarded as iconic of the danger of possessing temporal things, let alone very many temporal things. This is not to say that we should not possess temporal things, nor that we need not possess many temporal things. It is to say, rather, that there is a danger in possessing them. We ought be alive to the danger because our hearts are meant for God and his holy will. If we allow ourselves to be inordinately attached to the things which have come way, then there is the danger that the calls of God (be they great or small) can go unheeded. We cannot slumber in these matters, thinking that all will be well. Doubtless that rich young man did not think that the riches he possessed constituted a danger because he kept God’s commandments and wanted to get to heaven. He had holy desires and yearnings. But the danger remained and was real – if God called him to a higher generosity entailing a leaving behind of things he loved, what would be the upshot? Was he sufficiently detached for this? No, he was not. He was caught entirely off guard and thus Satan thwarted God’s loving plan for him. The young man was not vigilant in regard to himself. This tells us is that we must take very seriously our Lord’s first Beatitude, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). Our will, our heart, our spirit must not be cluttered with what is not of God.

All this brings us to our Gospel today (Luke 12:13-21), in which our Lord warns against avarice of every kind. The good and satisfactory life does not consist in the abundance of temporal possessions. Our Lord is not condemning the possession of temporal things, nor, as such, the possession of many temporal things. He is warning against a heart that is set on these things, a heart that desires them in themselves and primarily. He is warning against finding one’s security in them and one’s joy in life. We are called to be rich – but rich in the possession of God. What Christ proposes as a remedy for avarice is the thought of the Last Things. God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God. Let us think out real strategies to keep our hearts open and given to God.

(E. J. Tyler)

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