26th Sunday Year (C)
(Amos 6:1, 4-7; 1st.
Timothy 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31)
Woe to the complacent in Zion! Lying upon beds of ivory, stretched
comfortably on their couches, they eat lambs taken from the flock, and calves
from the stall! Improvising to the music of the harp,
like David, they devise their own accompaniment. They drink wine from bowls and
anoint themselves with the best oils.
St. Paul, speaking as a Roman citizen to members of
the Church of Jesus he himself had been sent to instruct, likewise, had that sort of morally unrestrained
life-style in mind when, earlier in the letter from which our second reading
was taken, he taught his converts:
Those who want to be rich are falling into
temptation and a trap, and into many foolish and harmful desires which plunge
them into ruin and destruction; for the love of money is the root of all evils,
and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith and have
pierced themselves with many pains.
But you, man of God, avoid all this …. Compete well for the faith; lay hold of
eternal life, to which you were called.
Now Jesus in His parable had named the poor man
Lazarus, but gave no such name to the luxuriously rich man, almost as if He would
not dignify with a name one leading such a life:
There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments
and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day, and lying at his door was a poor
man named Lazarus, covered with sores which the dogs used to come and lick.
And Jesus brought His parable to its climax after
both the rich man (whom we have traditionally named Dives) and Lazarus had died, by revealing to us where such revelling in luxury and pleasures ultimately
leads:
The rich man cried out: ‘Father Abraham, have pity
on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of
his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am suffering torment in these
flames.' Abraham replied, 'My child,
remember that you received what was good during your lifetime, while Lazarus likewise
received what was bad; but now he is comforted here whereas you are tormented.’
The rich man did not call out to God to save him,
he was not devout in the least; nevertheless, he still regarded himself as an
Israelite and still remembered Abraham.
However, not even Abraham was willing, let alone able, to help him: ‘You
want to warn your five brothers, you say?"
They
have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.
Notice how Abraham explained the reality of the situation
to Dives:
'My child, remember that you received what was good
(from God) during your lifetime, while Lazarus likewise received what was bad
(from men); but now he is comforted here whereas you are tormented.’
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s
sinful and adulterous world as Jesus called it, the God we worship is holy and
just, and the gifts He gives us are -- all of them – good; they are all
blessings: strength or beauty, intellectual or physical capabilities, simplicity
or strength of character, a sensitive, understanding, and calm nature, or an independent
and courageous spirit. However, if,
in the course of our earthly life, we choose to use sinfully these good
things -- these blessings received -- be it by totally absorbing ourselves
in personal enjoyment of them as did our rich man (why should we name him?) who
never even noticed Lazarus lying at his gate in abject poverty, or by diverting
them from their original and primal purpose of giving glory to God and service
to our fellows, into instruments for individual aggrandizement and advantage, personal
pleasure, moral license and licentiousness, then such misuse will meet with
punishment after death.
Strength is debased by the bully and the thug;
beauty is sullied by the siren or the tart; intelligence is abused by the
criminal, and individual character inevitably debased by excesses of pleasure, moral license,
licentiousness and irresponsibility.
Mother Church and our society have suffered long
from the gentle-Jesus people who have made our Christian, Catholic, Faith seem
spineless, toothless, and totally unable to inspire or challenge anyone. Just as, in the Old Testament, there was no
way back for Esau who sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage -- even though
he pleaded with tears to his father Isaac; so too, in Jesus' New Testament
parable, there is no repeal for Dives in hell, nor a hearing for his prayer on
behalf of his brothers.
Money, of itself, is not evil; but it is, as Jesus
said, "a tainted thing". Jesus
spoke of money in that way because, for the most part, the making of much money
comes from dishonest practices and leads to sinful living. But for an age such as ours, where ideals are
so low and worldly goods seem so attractive, we should perhaps allow as much as
we can and condemn only what it totally unacceptable. Therefore, let me simply repeat the Christian
and Catholic teaching: money and money-making are not intrinsically evil; indeed,
honest making of money can bring the great blessing of employment for others, while
money personally possessed can be used to benefit others in need, as Jesus
Himself had just said:
Make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon,
that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. (Luke 16:9)
However, People of God, we Catholics should not
allow ourselves to be deceived, neither should we deceive ourselves: a life
spent trying to get, enjoy, and pile up riches of whatever sort – especially
money, pleasure and power -- is an evil life. There are many, who --
vaguely recognizing this in the vestiges of their conscience -- try, by token
gestures and chosen words, to deceive both themselves and others; however, to
these Jesus says:
You … justify yourselves before men, but God knows
your hearts; for what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the
sight of God. (v. 15)
There are others, less devious perhaps, but more pathetic, who like to think there is safety in numbers; and, clinging to that gentle-Jesus sort of attitude I mentioned before, they cloud their minds with such thoughts as: "I am not the only one doing as I do; surely all those others, some well-known people and more important than me, can't be condemned too!"
The answer is, of course, that we do not know who
will be condemned, but we do know for certain that Jesus did once say (Matthew
7:13-14):
Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide
and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter
through it. For the gate is small and
the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Our present-day situation of faithlessness and indulgence,
self-righteousness and pride, moral lawlessness
and violence, may well have been favoured and furthered by the efforts of those
who have, for years, been trying to make the Faith into milk and water instead
of solid food for the soul. Indeed, it
may well be, that many more seekers of the one true God would have been enabled
to see, appreciate, and even embrace, Catholic truth and Christian faith, had it
been adequately presented and offered to them, had the teaching of the Church
not been made to appear so insipid and uninspiring, so spineless and
undemanding, by those who seemed to consider it their special calling to rescue
the Lord’s cause by personally larding His message so as to give it more
popular appeal.
People of God, we are a people whose recent
development is marked out most, clearly by the changes in our appreciation and
understanding of the Latin word "caritas” and our translation of it as “charity". "Charity" originally meant divine
love; it was God-given, sublime and inimitable, justifying all who whole-heartedly
and humbly embraced it.
Our translation of the word was then changed to
"love", and it’s meaning was understood as, first of all, human
love: the love of Christian friendship and married love, a limitation and watering-down,
but not a betrayal, of the original meaning.
Then, however, because a downward slope easily becomes slippery, the meaning gradually came to embrace any sort of human sexual relationship, even the most aberrant. Today, it is confidently used to designate any-and-every indulgent feeling: be it that of parents who ‘let their children decide for themselves’ in all things; or of the abortionist ever willing to help any girl or woman in trouble real or imagined; or of those who promote the right to assisted death to help the sick and elderly. Ultimately, it has attained its apogee as the favourite word for people who find words, concepts, such as public morality, individual self-control, personal humility and patience, faithfulness, and supremely, self-sacrifice, to be unsympathetic and inhuman, totally unacceptable to describe their modern way of life.
You … justify yourselves before men, but God knows
your hearts; what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight
of God.
People of God, we should try to appreciate and love
our Faith: its truth, its strength, and its beauty, ever more and more; we
should try to appreciate it in order that we might come to love it with our
whole mind and heart and give it ever fuller and freer expression in our lives,
by refusing to accommodate ourselves to that pervading shallowness of modern
society, which regulates itself in accordance with the lowest common moral denominator, thus smothering the true light of faith and the real beauty of love, just as it
enervates the sure strength of self-discipline, and the deep joy of
self-sacrifice for what is good and above self, as it meets us as we walk, in
Mother Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, along the way of Jesus, to
our heavenly home with the one and only Father of us all.
