The Catholic Calendar for Saturday, November 6, 2004
Saturday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Philippians 4:10-19
Psalm 112:1-2,5-6,8-9
Luke 16:9-15

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

Trustworthy With Wealth. . . . (see Luke 16:9)

Jesus advises us to make friends with material wealth so that when it fails we'll be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Serving God with singleness of heart insures that our so-called friend, wealth, fails. It is God who is our wealth and our eternal dwelling.

Making friends with "wealth" is much like the example of St. Therese of the Child Jesus who regarded a soul who challenged her most, as a best friend. Her example demonstrates how to regard whatever might tempt us to sin with special caution, in order to be redeemed, to be transformed through heroic grace into good. Self-discipline requires one to renounce temptations to lust, sloth or resentment in order to befriend what sanctifies us.

St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, likewise reminds us to regard with great appreciation that which challenges us most--what sanctifies us. We discover joy as we suffer graciously. For in this suffering we receive proportionate graces for the challenges we must face, and in this we acquire a great wealth of holiness. When we overcome temptation to self-indulgence, we become trustworthy with true wealth, our eternal inheritance, our Lord.

We discover great value in a poverty of self; emptying self for the mansions of our indwelling King, our Lord, our God and Savior. We acquire a wealth of Spirit, an eternity of the riches He alone is. We desire only His presence--and presents--and desire only to lose ourselves in order to become more of Him.

O my King, my Lord,
my One true wealth are you my God.
Amen

- Mary Williams
(wlmsconsul at pdq dot net)

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posted by joachim at 4:42 AM