Someone in
the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance
with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and
arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Then he told
them a parable. “There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my
harvest?’ And he said, ‘This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and
build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall
say to myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many
years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night
your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom
will they belong?’ Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for
himself but is not rich in what matters to God.”
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Reflection:
What is
material wealth that many of us are not able to let go of it? Many of us are
even willing to sacrifice family relationship and honor just to have possession
of this temporal wealth. Many of us are even willing to work even to the
detriment of our health just to have it.
We are even
willing to sacrifice our good name and reputation to have wealth even dirty or
corrupted wealth. Our greed for material wealth if not checked could be our
ticket to the kingdom of the evil one.
Who among us
are willing to go to hell in exchange for earthy wealth? None of us of course!
Yet we keep on punishing ourselves to have it not knowing that this greed for
wealth will only give us tons of problems and miseries.
Wealth per se
is not evil it becomes evil once we allow ourselves to be controlled and
manipulated by it. What should we do therefore? We must not allow wealth to
control and manipulate us. We should not allow earthly wealth to dictate upon
us. And this we can only do if we have Jesus in our lives.
Do you allow material
wealth to possess you? – Marino J.
Dasmarinas
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