20 September 2013
Memorial of Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Priest, and Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions, Martyrs
The Letter to Timothy has so many insights and today’s first reading provides the source for the well-known admonition: The love of money is the root of all evil. A short saying but one based on a profound theological truth.
Money is a means, not an end itself. Ignatius of Loyola, in his First Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises noted clearly the relationship between means and ends. Briefly, Ignatius identified union with God as the purpose of our life and that we use created things as means to help us attain the end for which we are created. Discernment, that omnipresent word tossed around within Jesuit circles, occurs when we consider what choices and the means those choices imply that will take us closer to God. Now, the love of money is simply the love of a means instead of the love of the object that means can be used to attain.
When we think about loving a means to accomplishing a purpose instead of the purpose itself, in this case union with God, it is not only sinful, it’s really rather silly.