How happy are the poor in spirit:
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. MT 5:3
ECCLESIASTES 1:2,2:21-23
My Soul's Beloved,
For too many of us, life is all about getting and possessing, using and disposing of, amassing worldly goods, paying little or no heed at all to the things that are eternal. Even if we are baptized Catholics, we are often so poorly catechized that we are worse than pagans who do not know You, and this is why we are easy prey for the world, the flesh, and the devil.
We live only for the moment. We spend our whole lives anxious about tomorrow, whether we have accumulated enough to see us through our old age. We take comfort in what we possess, and if we believe we have enough to last us until we die, we are not as anxious as we would have been had we to depend on others to care for us.
What fools we are, Beloved, if we place our hopes in people and things. The writer of today's first Reading reminds us that it is all vanity, a puff of wind, a blade of grass - the things that we spend our whole lives toiling for while neglecting what will give us eternal life. Grant us wisdom, O Lord, while we yet have time to work for the things that will last and lead of life in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher says. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity!
For so it is that a man who has laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.
PSALM 89(90):3-6,12-14,17
O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
For so it is that a man who has laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.
PSALM 89(90):3-6,12-14,17
O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
You turn men back to dust
and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.
You sweep men away like a dream,
like the grass which springs up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers:
by evening it withers and fades.
Make us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?
Show pity to your servants.
In the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Let the favour of the Lord be upon us:
give success to the work of our hands.
and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.
You sweep men away like a dream,
like the grass which springs up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers:
by evening it withers and fades.
Make us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?
Show pity to your servants.
In the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Let the favour of the Lord be upon us:
give success to the work of our hands.
O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
COLOSSIANS 3:1-5,9-11
My Soul's Beloved,
We were created for heaven. We are destined to live at Your right hand in the Kingdom of God. We are loved into being by the God of Love who created us in love, redeemed us in love, and sanctifies us in love. What fools we are, Lord, even those of us who know You and love You, because we continue to waste the time given to us in useless pursuits that bring us neither life nor death. Things that are neither sinful nor unlawful, but have no merit at all, and are time-wasting tactics the devil uses to distract us from living a wholesome, holy, grace-filled life.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner from the moment I was conceived in my mother's womb. Look with pity and compassion on me, a spineless worm readily giving in to every distraction, so lacking in self-discipline that I make very brief attempts to train myself in the way of holiness.
Today, I am reminded that I must kill in my body all that is in me that engages itself in the things that bring death rather than life, but I lack the strength to do so. Here I am, Lord, take all that I have and all that I am. I give You complete autonomy over my will and my life. Be my Master and do with me just what You will, for I can do nothing pleasing to You of my own accord. Thank You, Lord.
Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed – and he is your life – you too will be revealed in all your glory with him.
That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; and never tell each other lies. You have stripped off your old behaviour with your old self, and you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its creator; and in that image there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised or the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and free man. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.
LUKE 12:13-21
LUKE 12:13-21
My Soul's Beloved,
The man in the crowd who yelled out to You, asking You to settle an inheritance dispute with his brother, was spiritually blind and deaf. He did not see You for who You were, even though he had heard about You. All his focus was on having You use Your authority on his behalf for a temporal gain. All too often, Lord, we are just like him. We come to You and spend a greater portion of our lives begging You to give us earthly blessings while ignoring what we truly need, supernatural help in living a holy life pleasing to God.
While we do need to be prudent in our temporal affairs, it cannot be at the cost of the true reason why we were created, which is to know You, love You, and to be happy with You in this life and eternally happy in the life to come. When we are young, we pay no heed to how quickly life passes; it is only when we are on the threshold of our autumn and winter years that we are shocked at the lightning passage of time. Let us not waste time in vain regret, Lord, but spend whatever years that God graciously grants us in living holy lives as we prepare to stand before You and answer for how we spent this great gift of life given to us. Be merciful, O Lord, even though we do not deserve it.
A man in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.’ ‘My friend,’ he replied, ‘who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?’ Then he said to them, ‘Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.’
Then he told them a parable: ‘There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, “What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time.” But God said to him, “Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?” So it is when a man stores up treasure for himself in place of making himself rich in the sight of God.’
