A Homily – The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C)

First Reading – Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23 ©

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 89(90):3-6, 12-14,17 ©

Second Reading – Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11 ©

Gospel Acclamation – John 17:17

Alternative Acclamation – Matthew 5:3

The Gospel According to Luke 12:13 - 21 ©

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 We live and we die, we leave everything behind, within a generation or two we ourselves will be forgotten, reduced to a name etched in stone, on a metal plate, some papers… somewhere,  perhaps a digital image drifting in cyberspace.

 In time all of our work will be undone and we ourselves become nothing to the world, even as the Earth itself is swallowed by the sun.

 If our ambitions are set against these eventualities, then they are as the prophet said they are, merely vanities…nevertheless we continue.

 Consider what the psalmist says and know that God does never intervene to change the course of our lives. God is with us, yes, God is with us; God has created in each of us the desire and longing for God’s own self and made it a constitutional element of our being. This draws us to the divinity, but beyond this subtle pull, God does not intercede in our lives, does not interfere with our choices, does not intervene in the consequences of those choices. God neither works for us or against us in relation to our individual ambitions, or the many objects that occupy our hearts desire.

 God is the eternal—creator of all that is, and we are but motes of dust in the face of the infinite. We are; each of us individually and all of us together, infinitely less than the infinite God.

 God is never angry with us. We do not suffer because God desires to see us suffer, we do not sorrow because it please God to see us sorrowful. We are created with these capacities because they teach us something about joy and foster in us a want for peace.

 When we suffer and when we are sorrowful, we cause others to suffer and we bring them sorrow. When we rejoice and are glad the same is true, and God is with us through it all, feeling what we feel, knowing what we know, going through our experience even as we do.

 Consider the teaching of the Apostle and be wary of the desire for perfection. Though God has called us all to perfection, and though God has given us the example of Jesus to follow…Jesus who showed us the way; both our continuing and future failures are known to the divine and like all of our past failures they are forgiven even before they are instantiated.

 Have no fear…forgive yourself and forgive all of those whom you have harmed. Forgive those who have harmed you, for in the end, just as the Apostle promised, and all of our pretenses toward perfection will be revealed for the vanities they are.

 Be mindful.

 Do not shun the prophet when the prophet says: give up your earthly desires, for these desires are the root of all suffering, or that our greed and lust for material things are akin to the worship of false idols.

 Remember!

 In God there is no distinction between nationality, ethnicity or class; we are all one creation.

 Know this!

 You cannot prevaricate and serve God at one and the same time.

 We must navigate the course of our lives and through the countless paradoxes that present themselves as we read along the way. Take joy is the smile of a stranger, the kindness of your beloved, the opening of a flower, the smell of bread in the oven or a drink of cool water, and share it.

 The Gospel reading for today commends us to contemplate these three things:

 Know who it is to whom you are speaking. Do not ask you God to arbitrate a matter of inheritance; Jesus did not come to settle disputes over the distribution of a family’s fortune.

 Know that life is uncertain, our bodies are subject to the vicissitudes of chance. At any moment the expected life of a human could be expressed in years or months, in minutes or seconds.

 The truth is that we do not know, that we can never know; therefore, it is pointless to hoard wealth in preparation for the fantasy of a long life, or for a life of leisure as a reward for years of labor, any other consideration is vanity.

 Know the end to which God would have us direct our strengths, resources and talents; God would have them directed toward the benefit of all people, God would not have us hold them in reserve to serve the appetites of single person or their family…what you have you cannot take it with you…share it while you have it, and you will be on the way to the garden of peace and everlasting joy.

First Reading – Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23 ©

Vanity of Vanities; All is Vanity

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.

 

Responsorial Psalm – 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.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

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.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

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.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

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.

 

Second Reading – Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11 ©

You Must Look for the Things that Are in Heaven, Where Christ Is

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.

 

Gospel Acclamation – John 17:17

Alleluia, alleluia!

Your word is truth, O Lord:

consecrate us in the truth.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – Matthew 5:3

Alleluia, alleluia!

How happy are the poor in spirit:

theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Luke 12:13 - 21 ©

Fool! This Very Night your Soul Will be Demanded of You

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.’

 

A Homily – The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C)