Fr. Luigi Brioni, sx
EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
“You fool!” A name God gives to the man in today’s parable as well as to each one of us when we think and live as he did. You fool! What a terrible name God uses to call that man. That title would be enough among humans to take the speaker to court for defamation. And here we have God himself who speaks. But to which court of law can we take Him, if He calls us so?
Why then is God labelling that farmer a fool? Why we can be also fools, if we act in the same manner? Why? Because, as they say here in Sierra Leone, that man “no get sense”, he does not really know what life is all about, he has no wisdom whatsoever. Moreover he makes himself a total loner without any personal reference neither to God nor to others. He is a god to himself and to his full barns. He is not rich in the sight of God.
What a poor man, Jesus would say. But what about us? We may not behave exactly like that farmer, but the parable is surely for all of us a grace to think and reflect on the value we give to the things we possess, not only houses and lands and stocks, but also our little things at home, our preferences for one thing or another, our time and entertainment, our ideas and opinions … There are so many things we are dealing with in this life, for things are necessary, but do these things make us truly rich with life? So we can surely ask ourselves the question, How valuable are all my things to me?
The famous Fr. Anthony De Mello s.j. flatly wrote in one of his books (I am quoting by heart) that “All the evils in this world started when the first man said: This is mine!” Don’t we agree with him that “This is mine” is the real reason of many fights and envies and tragedies and killings and war? So many evils are perpetrated because what we possess has become more important than what we are. Humanity would be so more human if we did not turn our things into reasons to divide us from one other.
Here we can rightly remember the temptation Jesus went through on the highest of mountains when the Devil offered him all things (Mt4:8-10), yes all the kingdoms of this earth, if only Jesus would worship him! Can we not realize that even the Devil teaches us that an act of worship is more valuable than anything else? The Devil here is falling in his own trap as Jesus quickly remarks to him, “The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”
Never we can, or should, identify ourselves with things and them with us! Not even all the kingdoms of this earth! For things can never be the yardstick of our lives. Private ownership is certainly helping to keep human society with discipline and fairness, but it should never be deemed greater than God or even than our neighbour! Never. A couple of years ago our Pope Francis gave us an outstanding definition of others when he told us of the “sacred grandeur of neighbour” (E.G. 92), of every human being, over and above all things! Not for nothing Jesus taught us to pray in the plural, that is “Our Father” and “Our daily bread”, thus including all human beings, thus making us God’s family “on earth as it is in heaven”.
With our Christian faith, alive and loving, we will clearly understand the message of this Sunday’s Gospel that the Kingdom of God is the only absolute reality, making everything else relative (Pope Paul VI in E.N. 8). We will understand that barns full of goods, outside God and against our neighbours, are nothing but the illusion of one moment; whereas barns full of people are what God wills and what we enjoy most and best, here and … forever!
EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
“You fool!” A name God gives to the man in today’s parable as well as to each one of us when we think and live as he did. You fool! What a terrible name God uses to call that man. That title would be enough among humans to take the speaker to court for defamation. And here we have God himself who speaks. But to which court of law can we take Him, if He calls us so?
Why then is God labelling that farmer a fool? Why we can be also fools, if we act in the same manner? Why? Because, as they say here in Sierra Leone, that man “no get sense”, he does not really know what life is all about, he has no wisdom whatsoever. Moreover he makes himself a total loner without any personal reference neither to God nor to others. He is a god to himself and to his full barns. He is not rich in the sight of God.
What a poor man, Jesus would say. But what about us? We may not behave exactly like that farmer, but the parable is surely for all of us a grace to think and reflect on the value we give to the things we possess, not only houses and lands and stocks, but also our little things at home, our preferences for one thing or another, our time and entertainment, our ideas and opinions … There are so many things we are dealing with in this life, for things are necessary, but do these things make us truly rich with life? So we can surely ask ourselves the question, How valuable are all my things to me?
The famous Fr. Anthony De Mello s.j. flatly wrote in one of his books (I am quoting by heart) that “All the evils in this world started when the first man said: This is mine!” Don’t we agree with him that “This is mine” is the real reason of many fights and envies and tragedies and killings and war? So many evils are perpetrated because what we possess has become more important than what we are. Humanity would be so more human if we did not turn our things into reasons to divide us from one other.
Here we can rightly remember the temptation Jesus went through on the highest of mountains when the Devil offered him all things (Mt4:8-10), yes all the kingdoms of this earth, if only Jesus would worship him! Can we not realize that even the Devil teaches us that an act of worship is more valuable than anything else? The Devil here is falling in his own trap as Jesus quickly remarks to him, “The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”
Never we can, or should, identify ourselves with things and them with us! Not even all the kingdoms of this earth! For things can never be the yardstick of our lives. Private ownership is certainly helping to keep human society with discipline and fairness, but it should never be deemed greater than God or even than our neighbour! Never. A couple of years ago our Pope Francis gave us an outstanding definition of others when he told us of the “sacred grandeur of neighbour” (E.G. 92), of every human being, over and above all things! Not for nothing Jesus taught us to pray in the plural, that is “Our Father” and “Our daily bread”, thus including all human beings, thus making us God’s family “on earth as it is in heaven”.
With our Christian faith, alive and loving, we will clearly understand the message of this Sunday’s Gospel that the Kingdom of God is the only absolute reality, making everything else relative (Pope Paul VI in E.N. 8). We will understand that barns full of goods, outside God and against our neighbours, are nothing but the illusion of one moment; whereas barns full of people are what God wills and what we enjoy most and best, here and … forever!