Loving Money

Saturday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 38 (37):22-23 Forsake me not, O Lord, my God; be not far from me! Make haste and come to my help, O Lord, my strong salvation!

Collect Almighty and merciful God, by whose gift your faithful offer you right and praiseworthy service, grant, we pray, that we may hasten without stumbling to receive the things you have promised. 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: Philippians 4:10-19; Psalm 111; Luke 16:9-15

Jesus said, I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight. (Luke 16:9-15)

Loving Money It scarcely needs saying that we must earn and acquire money or its equivalent, because we are material and temporal beings, sustained by the material universe of which we are a part. In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis God entrusts the world to man and commands him to increase and to manage the earth for his own benefit. If we are to attain our natural ends and serve God in life, material resources will be necessary to a greater or lesser extent — and so money or its equivalent will be necessary. A lot of time in life has to be spent in acquiring money — or its equivalent — because we need material sustenance and resources. Our Lord needed money and he spent a lot of time seeking it. For the first thirty years of his life he lived as a typical villager and together with his foster-father Joseph, served as a carpenter-builder. He supported the small family circle by his paid work. That alone shows how central and important the business of acquiring money is. We must do it. When our Lord left his working profession and devoted himself exclusively to his public ministry, he still needed some money. Judas kept the common purse, managing the money that Jesus and the Twelve needed, were given and otherwise acquired. We read that several women assisted the travelling band with their practical help and personal resources. They contributed money. Simon Peter was asked if his Master paid the temple tax, and he said that he certainly did. We read in the Gospel of St John that while our Lord rested at Jacob’s Well at Sychar, the disciples went to the nearby village to buy some food. Where did the money come from? They had funds — some money was necessary for the operation of which they were now a part. When St Mary MacKillop went to Rome to gain approval for the religious Rule of her congregation, the Holy See insisted that the budding religious community have the canonical power to acquire money and material possessions. This was not in accord with the original intent, but God expects (and wants) us to have money in some sense for the prosecution of his holy will and his glory. Of course, all this ought be plain.

The problem, though, is that we can miss the point. The point of money and material possessions is to enable us to do God’s will (such as, in the case of Nazareth, to support the family circle) and to further the glory of God. That is the point, but if we do not exercise vigilance over our hearts and watch our unfolding goals in life, money will become the object of our heart’s love. Money should help us to love God the more by enabling us to serve him with effect and dedication. But the human heart being fallen as it is, money can result in our loving God the less. It can become the means of a flourishing self-centredness, rather than a means of a loving service of God. It can become a god — a minor god perhaps, although at times it can become the one and only god in a person’s life. This is that love of money which our Lord condemns in today’s Gospel. God’s first commandment is that we acknowledge him as the one only God, and not to have other gods in our life besides him. He and he alone is the Lord our God. But as fallen creatures, we can so easily devote ourselves to the acquisition of money instead. All this is to say that a great challenge lies ahead of every man and woman. It is to become detached from material possessions and totally attached in one’s heart to God. Our Lord is severe about it. “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight” (Luke 16:9-15). The Pharisees loved money, we read. Their hearts, then, were profoundly divided, and this was, doubtlessly, a factor in the hardness of their hearts towards Jesus Christ. What this means is that we must resist in our lives that love of money which supplants the supreme love for God. We are to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, and this the love of money destroys.

You do not love money? Well, how do you react in your heart when you are called on to give some of your money away to the poor? How do you react when your money is lost because of some circumstance? Is your heart found to be attached to money? If it is, it is probably feeding and bloating your egoism, and stifling your love for God. It is a very good idea to cut down on unnecessary material possessions and needless personal funds, precisely to lessen the chance of becoming attached to that money. It is also a very good idea, if possible, to give to the poor whenever asked. Apart from the good thus done, it will help protect the heart from that love of money which our Lord condemns in today’s Gospel. Love Jesus Christ above all, then!

(E.J.Tyler)

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A Second Reflection: (Philippians 4:10-19)

Attachment to Jesus St Paul makes a remark in today's passage from Philippians (4:10-19) that is a source of reflection: "full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty. There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength." That is to say, whatever be our circumstances, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. So we can be confident in the face of circumstances, which is to say confident that God will not allow us to be separated from him and his holy will by them. Our greatest foundation is the love of Jesus Christ. Therefore we ought strive to maintain a detachment from everything except our union with Jesus. Our attachment to things should be an attachment to them in Jesus. We love our family, and everything else that we should love in this life — in Jesus. Whether things are good or bad, we ought turn all our circumstances into opportunities to love Christ the more. For this we can depend on the grace of the Holy Spirit.

As we reflect on the fact that we do love Jesus (if it is the fact that we do), and that despite the course of events of life our love for Jesus has endured and grown, we ought be confident in the future action of the Holy Spirit in our regard. He will do the work. As is written on the tomb of Saint Mary MacKillop: trust in God!

(E.J.Tyler)

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