THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Her Doctrine and Morals Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost 2 September 2012

The Sunday Sermon

Dear Friends,

Jesus does not condemn riches or food or even working in today’s gospel, but rather, He condemns undue solicitude for these things. We are elsewhere admonished to work to provide for ourselves and others. We must work and provide for ourselves as long as God has given us the means and the ability to do so. What we must avoid is becoming the servants or slaves to these things. The rich man often becomes a slave to his riches, guarding and protecting them with great care; and consequently having no care or solicitude for his soul. The luxurious, the glutton, and the vain do likewise seek to serve rather than rule over the gifts of God. When God created man He placed him over the rest of His creation to rule it. It is a gross inversion of right order when men willingly enslave themselves to the creature rather than to God the Creator.

We cannot pretend to serve both God and mammon (riches, pleasures, etc.) as Our Lord makes clear in the gospel for today. Our focus can only be in one direction either toward God or toward mammon. Man is the glory of all of God’s creation; he is above it all. We may even place men who were created a little less than the angels above the angels as God chose to become man and unite Himself with us rather than with angels. Creation then was made to serve us. In seeking creatures with great eagerness and solicitude we put them in the place of God and become guilty of idolatry. The same can be said when we seek the even lesser creations of men such as fiduciary currency. If it is a great sin and crime to esteem God’s creation before God, then it must be a much worse crime to pursue man’s “creation” more than God Himself.

The beauty of the carefree trust of the birds of the air and the beautiful adornment of the flowers of the field bear a very slight resemblance to the true beauty of a soul that loves God and trusts in His divine providence.

While we must not worry about food and clothing, shelter, etc. nor become slaves to these things; we must nonetheless prudently provide ourselves with these necessities. The temptation is to become lazy under the guise of great faith and trust in God. It is easy to forget the admonition of St. Paul: Those who will not work, neither should they eat (2 Thes 3:10). We must do all that we can using the gifts and talents God has placed at our disposal, ever careful not to waste or squander them; and at the same time always remaining humble in the knowledge that these are gifts entrusted to us that may be taken away at any time. There is no permanence or security in them. These gifts are given to draw us closer to the Creator not to become an obstacle to our love for Him.

Job shows us in both his richness and his poverty what our attitude should be towards the things of this earth and God the giver of these things: “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job used his riches to glorify God and he used his poverty to glorify God. Never did his wealth or poverty become an obstacle to his love of God.

Perfection is unattainable in this life because it is reserved for us only in Heaven. Riches only pretend to hold perfect happiness and more often than not bring bitter and utter misery with them. Food promises pleasure and satisfaction, but when pursued without reserve only brings ill-health and all manner of digestive discomfort. Beauty when pursued above all else brings the most profound suffering and ultimate ugliness in its train. How many torture their bodies seeking an ideal that the world holds out as beauty, only to find it unattainable or worse yet to find the ideal has now changed to its opposite?

The fashions of this world are constantly changing with the insatiable fickleness of men’s desires. Yet, how many foolishly strive with their entire being to conform themselves to the prevailing fashion at the expense of their souls? And in spite of all these endeavors these poor misguided people often ruin their health and bodies destroying any natural beauty God may have given them and are uglier than ever. True beauty is not to be found in bodily shapes and colors, but rather in virtue of soul.

We must therefore work to provide for ourselves with what God has given us, but always with and for the love of God, never allowing anything to so consume our efforts or attention as to draw us away from this love. Let us ever be ready to sacrifice the lesser (creation) for the greater (the Creator)!