The Catholic Calendar for Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Tuesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Ezekiel 28:1-10
Deuteronomy 32:26-28, 30, 35-36
Matthew 19:23-30

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

Today we hear a difficult teaching about how riches hinder a person seeking heaven. Jesus didn’t just say that riches might be a hindrance, but are a hindrance, and He didn’t say it just once, but twice!

Now most of us who have an abundant share of the riches of this earth and think they are generous may think material things don’t impede their progress, but we just got told they do--our possessions are an impediment!

I have heard it countless times that being rich is in itself not bad, but it’s how we use our possessions that is most important. Now that may be altogether true, but if we distort what Jesus said and turn it into a statement about how we use our possessions we not only err, but dangerously err. Riches are a hindrance. “Only with great difficulty will a rich man enter into the kingdom.”

Does that mean we should all be poor? I don’t think so, but instead we must recognize the potential power of wanting and having many things. That is what Jesus was warning us about. Possessions capture our mind and time and before we know it we are enslaved without hardly knowing how.

What then should a serious lover of Christ do? Perhaps serious prayer and deliberate restraint from acquiring more and more of what we really don’t need (for the sake of Christ) and for the love of our neighbor, who has less, might be a start.

May God’s good and prudent Spirit guide us, who have relatively so much, to “tend toward” having less.

- Donna Nelson, OCDS
(drn3rd at hughes dot net)