Praise be Jesus, Samaritan.
These are beautiful words to refute a phrase I remember even, unfortunately, when I was more of a worldling.
You'd hear some of my friends, and I'm sure all of you have heard it at one point or another, or most of us have.
Whoever dies with the most toys wins.
And the only question is, they don't answer the question.
It's kind of like begging the question, wins what?
What is it you're supposed to win with the most toys?
And our Lord actually answers the question in today's gospel.
Take care to guard against all greed.
For though one may be rich, one's life does not consist of possessions.
And he concludes in today's gospel,
You know, having been a priest, admittedly, for a short time,
already I'm finding one of the things that I kind of, does, I have to say, gets under my skin and really does irritate me.
But actually, it almost seems to fulfill this gospel passage.
And more or less, in today's world, you know, you make out your will, and you hope that it'll be observed.
And that's about all you can hope for.
Because the children can take it and contest it.
Because they have no respect.
You know, if they don't have a fear of God, they have no respect of your will.
You're dead. You can't even fight for your will.
In fact, I'm actually learning that they're even now trying to make it so that you can, you know,
contest how things are divvied up and even prevent the parents from,
you know, spending the patrimony.
In a certain sense, that's at least right.
Spending the patrimony of the family.
There's a certain legitimacy there, but you wouldn't see them doing that, you know,
if you take your patrimony and go to the casino and gamble it away.
All gone.
They won't defend it.
So, in some cases, it depends what you're giving the patrimony away for.
If you're giving it to the church, you might find some difficulties if it's the patrimony.
If you're giving it to the casino,
Ah, well, we'll accept.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for the contribution.
There's a disparity here, which is, you know, there's a lack of consistency in what is actually right.
You know, in a certain sense, that's why I say in a certain sense, qualified.
Yeah, maybe the patrimony, perhaps there might be a question there that might need to be looked at.
But there is another question of, you know, they don't mind if you lose it gambling,
but they don't like it when you give it to the church or good works.
So, certainly, if you give it to certain organizations which hate family and life,
try to kill the children in the womb and contraception,
you can be certain that they'll certainly appreciate the contribution and defend it.
So, anyway, we have to wait.
On the last day, we know the Lord will work everything out.
And as we, he'll work everything out to the right, we must say that.
But as we, for ourselves, we also have to take this,
this parable that our Lord tells about the rich man and consider it with another rich man, I think,
which helps us to understand what our Lord says in many places in the gospel,
at least with three different parables that I can think of.
This rich man, you know, he has this large harvest and he's, you know, he's going to,
he's, everything revolves around himself.
And in our own world today, we often measure our success,
our self-importance by our material wealth and the things and toys that we have.
You know, I'm doing better than you.
I'm doing better than you are type of attitude.
You know, look how successful I am.
And, you know, you're, well, on the last day,
you may find out that God is actually pleased with that poor man that you've been looking down your nose at.
Our Lord knows who the Lazarus is, the poor man Lazarus,
but he doesn't know the name of the rich man,
whose name is just simply a rich man.
Tradition gives us a name, gives us a name.
But our Lord doesn't name him.
He leaves him unnamed because oftentimes it's the poor who are unnamed.
Who cares what your name is anyways, right, in the world?
As far as the world is concerned, you're poor.
Who cares what your name is?
You're not important.
But to God, you are important.
And our Lord tells the rich man, we know,
the one that he was actually really called by a vocation,
in different ways he'll tell us, and even this rich man, it applies.
If you would save your life, you must be prepared to lay it down for the love of God
and for the sake of his gospel.
If you do that,
you will save your life.
But in trying to save your life,
you will lose it
because you put it before God.
This is the mistake of this man in today's gospel.
He didn't think about God.
He didn't think about his neighbor.
All he was thinking about was himself.
Even St. Paul, in his exhortations,
we know at one point the Jewish people in Jerusalem,
there was a lack and there was a need
because they'd had, I don't know, a poor harvest
or fell into some hard times.
And so there was a lack,
there was a plea that went out to all the other Christian communities
to help support the suffering Catholics and Jews in Jerusalem.
And St. Paul goes in scriptures,
you hear him going around raising these funds
to help out those in their time of need.
And he exhorts them,
in your own time of abundance,
the Lord gives you an abundance
so that you can actually help others.
Not so that you can sit and kick your feet up
and say, well, I can eat, drink, and be merry.
Yeah, eat, drink, and be merry.
But don't forget the rest of that gospel passage.
Eat, drink, and be merry,
and for tomorrow you die.
You never know when our Lord's going to cut that line off
and you're not going to continue.
But by thinking of our neighbor,
well, I even like to tell people,
how can you be rich
and actually, as it were, take it to heaven?
Because they always tell you,
you can't die and take it with you.
If you want to die and take it with you,
you've got to give it up.
Follow what our Lord told a rich young man.
Go give what you have.
Sell what you have, give it to the poor,
and come follow me.
And he went away sad
because his possessions were many.
The heart can be very attached
to the things of this world.
And oftentimes, the various ways that we may lose them,
sometimes either by theft,
sometimes because of our own neglect,
our own carelessness,
sometimes through the fault of others or stealing,
whatever ways we may lose them,
those things that we possess,
if we're overly disturbed about it,
there may be something wrong
and it may have been a good thing
that the Lord took it from us.
In spite of however it may have fallen out,
if someone even stole it.
Well, if you recognize that as the fact
that our Lord took it from you,
well, then pray for the poor guy that stole it
because he's got a bad intention,
even though he may have been doing something
that was in accordance with God's will.
You don't know.
Certainly, you're overreacting to what's lost.
It's not a healthy attitude.
It's not a good response.
Our Lord tells the saints,
as bad things happen,
he says, don't receive it from the sinner.
He says, you receive it from me
because I permitted it.
If I didn't want the thief to break in
and take it from you,
it wouldn't happen.
That doesn't mean he condones the sin
or wants the sin to happen.
We know God doesn't will moral evil.
But he doesn't.
He does give us the exercise of our free will.
And this is why he tells St. Gertrude,
pray for those who stain themselves
to purify you.
It's at their own expense.
And our own pity,
it's just come up recently
in some of my readings on the Passion.
It's a beautiful reflection
and it kind of struck me.
We often do it,
but don't maybe put it all together.
To concretely have pity
on those who have offended and hurt us
and sinned against us.
And to have some
practical way of helping them.
And we see this perfectly.
This is what our Lord does for us.
We crucified him by our sins.
And he had pity on us
and died for us.
And then we weep and cry
and boo-hoo like little children
because almost like we've stubbed our little girls
who stub our toes.
We jump around screaming and yelling.
Grow up.
We've got to grow up.
Admittedly, it's difficult.
You may have difficulty in accepting it.
Ask the Lord for help.
We've got feelings.
We've got emotions.
Certainly, that's a part of our nature.
But it doesn't mean we have to submit.
Our will doesn't have to submit to it.
The will is a higher faculty
and we can choose
not to accept the feelings
and the emotions.
We don't have to accept those things.
But it also means that we have to do
what we know will mitigate
those things.
There is such a thing as
nursing our bad feelings,
bad emotions,
and then all of a sudden, we blow up.
Well, yeah, if you nurse it,
it's like a dog licking its wound.
You've got to stop nursing
the wound.
Well, nursing it in the bad sense.
You want to nurse it, you nurse it properly.
There's a proper way
of nurturing things
even when it's a spiritual
hurt.
And sometimes it means
we have to come to God
and ask His help.
Pondering on the passion
and crucifixion,
the sufferings of our Lord
and our Lady
that will help us
to embrace what is difficult
and to think of the other.
To have pity on the other
who has done us a great good.
If we get to heaven,
God willing, we all do get there.
If we realize what sufferings,
what our sufferings,
what reward our sufferings
were going to bring us.
If we had any concern
or any conception of it,
the saints,
now are you going to believe them or not?
Want to call them liar?
They know better than we do.
They tell us
that if they could,
they would wish to have suffered more
because of the great, great reward
that we receive.
There's no comparison with it.
That doesn't mean that
it isn't balanced.
You don't start running around
beating yourself.
Do it with spiritual direction
so that you're prudent.
It's simply to carry the cross
that God gives us.
So we don't have to go out
looking for more.
The cross of today,
here and now, is enough.
Oftentimes that's enough already
saying, Lord, I can't take anymore.
You're about ready to give up
the whole enchilada.
Don't chuck in the baby
with the bathwater.
I should say chuck out.
Chuck out the baby
with the bathwater.
It's a sign of God's love
that he should not give up.
It's a sign of God's love
that he should not give up.
He should not give up.
He should not give up.
He should not give up.
He should not give up.
He should not give up.
He shares our suffering
and gives us an opportunity
to be united with his suffering
on the cross.
The sufferings also,
not only the sufferings
just him on the cross,
but also his most holy mother.
One of the reasons why I say
we need to reflect
on these two sufferings
because sometimes we're not
Jesus crucified.
Sometimes the suffering
we're enduring
is the blessed mother
at the foot of her cross.
That thinking of the other.
Suffering out of compassion
at the sufferings of others.
And this is why
this brings us to the nature
of understanding what sin is.
Oftentimes we can paint it like this.
Take you have a sick person
who you love very much.
You really, really care.
You'd bend over,
knock yourself over
and kill yourself
trying to help them out
in their sufferings.
Because you really, really love them.
Now recognize sin
as that sickness.
You know, that person
who's physically ill.
It's an imposition on you.
You have a burden.
Although you freely take it on
because you love the person.
But what's wrong with us
that when somebody sins,
even if it's against us,
they're sick.
They're spiritually sick.
Why do we run from them
and not help them?
They're sicker than
any other sickness in the world
they could be sick with.
They're spiritually sick with sin.
And they need our help.
By whatever way
we're able to help them.
Sometimes you can't
concretely help them.
Sometimes you actually have to.
Sometimes your mere presence
provokes them.
St. Catherine of Siena
had that happen.
One person was provoked.
Every time she was around
this one woman,
the woman just got irate.
And really,
she had to stay away
from the woman.
She tried to humble herself.
She tried to do everything she could.
Anyway,
the Lord was very exasperated
with this woman
and actually took her life.
But through the intercession
of St. Catherine of Siena,
that woman entered into heaven
only with her baptismal grace.
St. Catherine witnessed to that.
And she said,
it was so beautiful a soul
as it was worth dying for.
And there would be no suffering
that she could endure
that she wouldn't want
to make such sacrifices
to save so beautiful a soul
from entering into heaven.
Only with its baptismal grace
so beautiful is the soul.
It encourages us
to ponder on these things
as we ponder on the weakness
and the failure
of this rich young man.
We ask our Lord and Our Lady
especially not to get caught up
into the things of this world,
its riches,
its honors,
its pomps,
seeking our own glory,
but to really put our service,
the talents that we have,
whether we have the gifts
of an abundance of wealth,
our Lord tells St. Catherine,
the rich hold in their very hands
the means they can use
to obtain their salvation.
You could almost say
they could buy their way to heaven
by helping them.
They could buy their way to heaven.
By helping Christ in the poor.
You have to be careful.
You can't really buy your way to heaven.
But if they have a proper disposition
and they use their wealth
for the love of God,
helping Him in the poor,
they can get their...
That's what our Lord tells the rich man.
And you will be rich in heaven.
That's what our Lord tells him.
We mustn't be discouraged.
It's a dying,
trying to give up our own will
and the sacrifices
and giving up our own honor.
Using our intellect
at the service of Christ.
You know, if we have a bright intellect.
Recognizing our talents,
not that we're better than others,
but that God's given us special talents
to be a service to His people.
Not so that we can look down our nose
and think we're better than everybody else.
If God has made you,
quote unquote,
have certain abilities
that gives you the appearance
of being better than others,
that's so that you can serve those
who you can see need your help.
In a humble, loving way.
Not in a proud, pompous way.
And it's difficult.
That's why we need to pray
and ask our Lord for help
that we recognize sometimes
that we are a little bit pompous
in the way we talk to others
or talk down to others.
May our Lord and Our Lady help us
to rejoice in the things
and the talents,
the gifts that God has given us.
But in all the things
that God has given us
that we might use them
for His glory,
His honor,
for the love of our neighbor,
to draw all souls,
to honor God,
to glorify God,
and to draw other souls
to love and serve the Lord
as we seek to do so ourselves.
Praise be Jesus and Mary.
Amen.