EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
31 July 2022, St. Lambert
Eccl
1:2; 2:21-23
Col
3:1-5, 9-11
Lk
12:13-21
“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 all
who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.” //
“Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities!”
Among other things, summertime is marked by class reunions. Generally,
these events get mixed reviews depending on whom you talk to. Some joy, some
indifference, and, yes, some dread! I am going to go out on a limb and declare
that the older we get the better our class reunions. I mean that in the sense
of our Gospel for today. “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 all who store up treasure for themselves but
are not rich in what matters to God.” Class reunions inevitably end up being times
to take stock of how our life project has been going. It is in this matter especially
that I am convinced that the older reunions are the more positive ones. That is
very simply because if the years don’t necessarily make us wiser, they can make
us milder and maybe happier, by knocking off our rough edges and relativizing
our expectations. For men and women of good will, that materialism typical of
youth and those career goals that go with it lose their importance, especially
those projects pushed on children by overly ambitious parents. Whether we for
ourselves have reached those youthful goals or just become more realistic about
our capabilities and the opportunities available to us, with age there seems to
be more time for living and, if we are believers, the things of God can
actually take on more importance in our lives.
Now, let me be clear! You are thoroughly entitled to
contradict my experience when it comes to reunions and insist that your fifth
or tenth or twentieth high school reunion were all fantastic. But in my case being
out of the country for most of my adult life, I only managed to make one, my 20th
reunion, and it was a heartbreak for all sorts of reasons and in all sorts of
ways. My point would be that in the life of a Christian, of a believer, of a
good Catholic with the aging process can come a greater measure of serenity
grounded in the detachment which accompanies our life experience, especially our
failures and mistakes. They used to call that process the “school of hard
knocks”.
Apart
from those class reunions I missed, I did have the joy of experiencing the progress
which had taken place in the lives of a goodly number of former classmates on
the occasion of my ordination as a bishop in November of 2004. That was 36
years after our graduation from O’Gorman. Thirty-some of my class of 200 were
present that day in the Cathedral and many, especially men, took the time to
write good and thoughtful letters to me thereafter and shared some powerful reflections
about their life experience at that point in their lives. I was impressed by
the grace the women had acquired and the wisdom and humility of many of those
men.
I am a firm believer in the old maxim from that TV hair color
commercial, “You’re not getting older, you’re getting better”. As the anxious
career goals of our late teens and early twenties give way to other priorities
in our own lives, we gain constancy, and we can find joy. As we give up trying
to pressure our children into achieving and instead start hoping and praying
that they will grow up happy, healthy, and holy, we still may have our worries,
but at least now maybe for the right reasons.
If I had to say it, this is where the message from our second
reading, from St. Paul to the Colossians, comes in.
“Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you
have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life
appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.”
As a young priest I can remember men coming to confession for
Easter who would straight out say, “Father, I really don’t know why I am here
except for my Easter duty, as I don’t have any sins.” You rarely hear that anymore,
but I suspect the reason is that those sinless ones have drawn the logical
conclusion of not needing confession and have decided they don’t need church or
Christ anymore either. I guess they answer to themselves, but to no one else. Granted,
they may not be criminals or particularly wicked in the moral sense, but Paul’s
words have no real meaning for them. “For you have died, and your life is
hidden with Christ in God.”
To a certain extent I guess I live from my memories. From my
class in high school I have all kinds of recollections of young men and women
who were just plain good; these are the memories that tend to surface. In
another sense, however, I live very much in the present and rejoice in the
witness of virtue: upright living and constancy in sacrifice after the manner
of Jesus Christ for the sake of spouse and children, for the sake of the life
of the world.
A number in my class are talking about a 55th
reunion in 2023. The argument for not waiting for our 60th is mostly
because we have begun dying out in significant numbers. I rather suspect that
the eagerness has more to do with the number of wise and virtuous men and women
they would love to see again and spend more time with this side of heaven. That
is good, but important is that we have our sights set on Christ.
“Think
of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is
hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will
appear with him in glory.”
In the lives of the saints, we come across many who were single-hearted
in their attachment to Christ from a very tender age and maybe even you could
say they were too good for this world as the Lord called them home while they
were still very young. Others experienced a profound conversion, leaving behind
soldiering and the ways of the world to embrace Christ and make atonement
through penance for the excesses and distractions of youth. I personally take
hope in those saints who lived long and constant lives marked by abundant
goodness. Whatever our path in union with Christ, may we be a source of
encouragement for one another in the Lord!
“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 all who store up treasure for themselves but are
not rich in what matters to God.” // “Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity
of vanities!”
Praised be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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