By Martin Jumbam
Mother Church celebrates Sunday, July 31, 2016, as the 18th Sunday in ordinary time, year C. In the entrance antiphon we pray: “O God, come to my help. O Lord, quickly give me assistance. You are the one who helps me and sets me free: O Lord, do not be long in coming. Amen.”
In the first reading, the Old Testament preacher wonders what man gains for all his toils. All is vanity because life is short, empty and worthless and so what is the use of trying to be wise when death will end it all? What is the use of our work and anxiety when someone else will inherit the fruits of our labour? The tone of his voice is definitely pessimistic but, with the New Testament, Christ brings a new way of life that is worth living because it leads us to eternal life in heaven.
In the second reading, Saint Paul tells the Colossians how important Christ is to them. They should know that Christ’s death and resurrection have destroyed religious practices that depend on material things. With that, they have undergone a transformation that will lead them to heaven where Christ lives in the company of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, three in One.
In the Gospel, Saint Luke tells us the story of the rich fool who believes that all that counts is to amass wealth and store it securely for a rainy day, which, in his case, never comes. He is a fool who fails to see that the meaning of life consists in becoming rich before God. Like many of us in positions of authority in church, as well as in civil society, the foolish rich man looks for life’s purpose in material wealth rather than in God, the giver of life and wealth. Let us pray, in the course of this holy Eucharist, for the grace to follow Christ more closely because it is in him, not in material goods, that our salvation lies.
First Reading: Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23.
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher says. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity! For so it is that a man who has laboured wisely, skillfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
Ecclesiastes, also known as Qoheleth, is one of the books that are read in the Synagogue during certain Jewish festivals, such the Feast of the Tabernacles, a feast celebrated at the end of the first harvest. The reading of the book of Ecclesiastes is meant as an invitation to rejoice and give thanks for the good things of the harvest, remembering that they are a gift from God.
The African Bible tells me that this book was written at a period when the neighbouring nations, such as the Greeks and the Phoenicians, had brought about much intermingling of cultures throughout the Near East. The sacred writer of Ecclesiastes was greatly influenced by the Greek philosopher, Epicurus, who developed a philosophy that swept the world and aroused thinking people to reflect on the problems of life1
The importance of this book lies in its central message, which is found in the reading of this day, namely, what is the value of life? The book is in the form of an autobiography, telling of the author’s investigation of the meaning of life and the best way to enjoy life. He proclaims all the actions of man to be inherently vain, futile, empty, and meaningless. The lives of both wise and foolish men end in death so why the toil and the hassle to earn a living when life will soon be over?
In light of this perceived senselessness, he suggests that one should enjoy the simple pleasures of daily life, such as eating, drinking, and taking enjoyment in one's work, which are gifts from the hand of God. The book concludes with an injunction to "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone" (12:13).
How relevant is this message to us in Cameroon today? Although the sacred writer’s aim seems mainly focused on what he had discovered about life and what a man or woman may gain from it, his insistence on the vanity of earthly things addresses our situation in Cameroon today where the pursuit of material goods and bodily pleasure has taken the proportions of a religion. The massive corruption, for which our country is so notorious, is characterized by the unbridled quest to amass earthly possessions that are merely transitory.
The author warns against too much attachment to earthly goods. Such a warning is timely for us in Cameroon today where rampant bribery and corruption, embezzlement of public funds, the oppression of the poor by the rich and well-to-do are the order of the day. These are acts, which the Catholic Church, through our Bishops, has never ceased to condemn. As Christ says in the Gospel about the rich fool, we amass wealth, think we will have all the time in the world to squander it, but then God calls us to himself when we least expect it; and then others squander our embezzled goods.
So, let us take a lesson from the Ecclesiastes because all is vanity. All the riches we amass are useless if we do not remember that it comes from God, the giver of life, who can take it back from us at anytime. Let us therefore pray and thank God for the riches he has given us but, more importantly, let us remember that whatever we have is a free gift from him, who shares generously. So let us also learn to share what we have with those in greater need, instead of hoarding it for another day, which may never come. Lord, teach us to share. We make our supplication through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Second reading: Colossians 3:1-5. 9-11.
Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed – and he is your life – you too will be revealed in all your glory with him. That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; and never tell each other lies. You have stripped off your old behaviour with your old self, and you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its creator; and in that image there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised and the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and free man. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
Saint Paul has told the Colossians how important Christ is to them. He however wonders why if they have truly died with Christ to the material things of this world do they still let the old ways dictate to them? They should instead be interested in those things that will ultimately lead them to heaven. The Colossians should know that by his death and resurrection, Christ has destroyed the religious practices that depend on material things and freed them from the power of Satan and of death.
In other words, Christians have been raised to a new kind of life, whereby they share, even while on earth, in the glorious life of the risen Lord. This life is at present spiritual and hidden but when our Lord comes in glory, it will become manifest and glorious. That is why we must seek the things that are in heaven, the things of God, where Christ is.
“In their pilgrimage to the heavenly city,” the Fathers of the Church have said, “Christians are to seek and relish the things that are above (Col 3: 1-2): this involves not a lesser, but a greater commitment to working with all men to build a world that is more human”2. This means that every aspect of our lives, be it in the family, at work, or in our Christian community, must be lived in a spirit of faith and trust in the Lord. “Belief in Jesus Christ,” Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI tells, “is the way to arrive definitively at salvation”3
Paul tells the Colossians that they have undergone a transformation that has restored them to the image and likeness that man was given at the beginning; an image that is not an abstraction but a concrete person, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. Christ and his Church fill the earth because it is only through them that we can be saved. Through baptism, we rise from the tomb with the Risen Lord. We should therefore not live for ourselves alone but for our brothers and sister as well, especially the poor, the marginalized, the orphan and the widow.
For this to be possible, we must discard our old nature, the old man in us, the old self that continues to lead us by disorderly passions. With the help of grace, the old nature in us is being broken down while the new self is being renewed. We must therefore uproot all forms of impurity and all other vices from our lives so as to make room for goodness and love, especially charity.
We learn from Saint Paul that Christ’s disciple, who has been made a new person and who lives for the Lord, has a new and more perfect knowledge of God and of the world. From this perspective, the new disciple sees things from ‘above’ with a ‘supernatural insight’. This enables him to love and understand everyone without distinction of race, nation or social status. This is the way to imitate Christ, who has given himself for the salvation of all mankind: Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, slave and free alike.
That is why we must, as Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI recommends, “keep our gaze fixed upon Jesus Christ, the ‘pioneer and perfecter of our faith’ because in him, all the anguish and all the longings of the human heart find fulfillment”.4 Let us pray with Saint Augustine: “Lord, my God, pay heed to my prayer. Look with mercy on my desire, which is not concerned with myself alone but with my neighbor’s good as well. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Gospel: Luke 12: 13-21.
A man in the crowd said to Jesus. ‘Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.’ ‘My friend,’ he replied, ‘who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?’ Then he said to them, ‘Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.’ Then he told them a parable: ‘There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, “What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time.” But God said to him, “Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?” So it is when a man stores up treasure for himself in place of making himself rich in the sight of God.
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Comment
As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, conflict with the Jewish authorities is becoming more and more inevitable. He openly attacks the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the heartless behavior of the lawyers (Lk 11: 37-48). Whereas the scribes and the Pharisees are becoming increasingly irritated by his attacks on them, the ordinary people see him as rabbi and prophet with authority and prestige to settle family issues as prescribed in Deuteronomy (21: 17).
In the passage of our meditation, Christ is faced with one such family issue. A man approaches him and asks him to use his good offices to bring his brother to reason so he can give him his own share of the family inheritance. This is a clear example of a man who approaches a religious leader not to seek advice on spiritual matters, but rather to invite him to solve his material problems.
Jesus rejects his request outright, not so much because he is insensitive to the injustice this man might have suffered in his family, but because solving family disputes is not part of his redemptive mission on earth. He has come not to solve social and family problems but to give us the principles and moral standards that we can use to resolve such issues. He does not mean that social justice should not be observed, nor that just wages should not be paid. These are part and parcel of Christian concern for the social order.
He is sensitive to them but from a different angle. That is why he follows his rejection of this man’s request with the parable of the rich fool. Here is a man who only thinks of amassing material goods to ensure a comfortable life on earth, forgetting the goods of the spirit, which alone ensure us eternal life. Christ is warning us in this reading not to make the amassing of wealth, as we see so often in our country, the sole goal of our life.
There is nothing wrong in a person wanting to own what he needs for a living, but if he makes the possession of material goods an end in itself, rather than a means to an end, he ends up like the rich fool in this Gospel passage. God may decide to take possession of his soul, leaving others to squander his amassed wealth, because wealth is mere vanity of vanities, as the Preacher tells us in the first reading of this Mass.
Blessed Pope Paul VI says it well: “Increased possession is not the ultimate goal of nations and of individuals. All growth is ambivalent. It is essential if man is to develop as a man, but in a way it imprisons man if he considers it the supreme good, and it restricts his vision. Then we see hearts harden and minds close, and men no longer gather together in friendship but out of self-interest, which soon leads to strife and disunity. The exclusive pursuit of possessions thus becomes an obstacle to individual fulfillment and to man’s true greatness. Both for nations and for individuals, avarice is the most evident form of moral underdevelopment.” 5
So what do we learn from this reading? Our Lord teaches us that putting our hearts into the pursuit of wealth and worldly well-being is nothing but vanity of vanities. True happiness is not founded on worldly goods alone because a man’s life, as Saint Luke tells us, does not consist in the abundance of his possessions (Lk 12:15). Our life on earth is short and limited because God can, at anytime, tell us, as he tells the rich fool: ‘This night your soul is required of you.” Death is not something as remote and far off from us as many think.
Many of our compatriots have embezzled public funds, meant for the development of our country, and stashed them away in foreign banks only to have their souls required of them when they least expect it. They have gone without making use of that wealth and foreigners are growing fat on it. What a lesson for you and me, my brothers and sisters!
The Lord continuously warns us to be on the watch (Mt 24: 42-44) for we know neither the day nor the hour when our soul will be required of us. Let us pray for the grace of detachment from the goods of the world so that the temptation to amass and hoard earthly possessions for ourselves alone will not overwhelm us. What we work for or earn should be for the glory of God, the owner of all that we have.
Let us pray with Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits): “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will, all I have and call my own, You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace; that is enough for me. Amen.”
- 1. The African Bible, p. 1051.
- 2. Gaudium et spes, 57.
- 3. Porta Fidei (The Door of Faith), 3.
- 4. Ibid, 13.
- 5. Populorum progressio, 19:
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