In today's Gospel, our Lord does not deny that He has the judicial power to arbitrate
this contention between two brothers.
He simply is pointing out, for He does have this judicial power because He is Lord of
Lord and King of Kings, but He is trying to point out to all of us that He came not to
exercise His power in this manner, but rather that the greedy, and that is all sinful men,
may be cured of their greed or whatever sin they are indulging in.
And so He wishes to instruct us by today's Gospel what is really the pearl of great price,
that is, that we dwell.
We dwell in the grace of God, and that we receive the grace of God.
And so our Lord gives us a catechesis on the life of the soul, that the soul cannot be
content with the things of this world.
And He also points out that when we have set our hearts and minds on the things of this
world, how we begin to operate.
We think that by storing up more and more of the wealth of this world, we will always
have at our fingertips the means to indulge ourselves in the gluttony and in the luxuries,
and most especially those gluttonies and luxuries of our modern world.
And so He wants to point out to both the brother who wishes to share the wealth of his other
brother and the brother who has the wealth, that they both have fallen to the same sin,
that is, the sin of covetedness, putting their hope in stock in the things of this world.
And our Lord is instructing us that in the life of the soul, we must always have an empty
place.
We must always strive, always to be faithful.
We must always be filled with the grace of God, but always have a sense of emptiness,
that we can always do more and always receive more, for the soul has an infinite capacity
for the love of God.
That is why, if we are faithful to our Lord in this life, we will experience the beatific
vision for all eternity in heaven.
And so He wishes to instruct each and every one of us that we must put our hope for happiness
in that one thing that alone can give us happiness, that is union with Him for all eternity in
heaven.
And so let us strive by striving always to keep that empty spot in our soul, that spot
that we wish to have filled always and everywhere with the grace of God.
Let us strive by this to overcome the lust for the things of this world that is blinding
so many souls and keeping them from the path to heaven.
And so let us strive, especially in this day and in this age, to sacrifice always so that
our society begins to manifest also the life of the soul.
That it becomes a society not of misery, for the Lord wished that no generation dwell in
misery.
And when we see misery being perpetrated on all poor souls in the world, then we know
full well that one of the primary vices that is afflicting the world is the vice spoken
of today, that is the vice of greed.
And so let us strive always to establish that form of society in which there is want, but
there is no misery.
That is the abject poverty in which human beings do not live.
They do not live as human beings, but indeed they live in an even worse state than the beast.
And so let us strive always to seek to fill ourselves with the love of God and not with
the things of this world.
And if we do that, then we are certain that we are on our way to our heavenly home and
that we will receive from the Lord what he has promised us, that place preserved for
us from all eternity in his Father's heavenly kingdom, there alone where we receive the
storehouse of God, because we receive that which is most precious to the human soul,
union with the blessed Trinity for all eternity in heaven.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.