19 October 2020
Memorial of Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs
Read the stories of the North American martyrs, especially Brebeuf and Jogues, and you will come to know men who took Our Lord’s words today to heart: “…one’s life does not consist of possessions.” Indeed Jesus exhorts us to be “…rich in what matters to God…” even if that means being poor in what matters to the world, especially if what matters to the world is against God. For “what profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life” (Matthew 16:26)?
Jesus is met by a man complaining that his brother will not share the inheritance with him. We can assume from this complaint two things: first, the inheritance rightly belongs to the other brother, as it was willed to him (otherwise he would not have it) and, second, the heir must be a religious man, as the plaintiff believes Jesus’ opinion on the matter will force the heir’s generosity. But Jesus sees straight through the man’s question: there was no injustice here, but only greed and envy. Thus Our Lord warns the crowd, and the man specifically, against greed and against the very human tendency to weigh the worth of one’s life according to their worldly wealth.
This truth is illustrated in a parable about a foolish man who seeks to hoard his abundant harvest and all his riches so he can live an easily life for a long while, forgetting that no human being knows the day nor the hour in which they will meet their mortal end. He has wasted his life gathering wealth he cannot take with him, and so he goes to the next life poorer than Lazarus, as he has laid up no treasure at all in Heaven (Matthew 6:19-21). How shall he enjoy his eternity, if all he desired to enjoy was his mortality?
We would do well ourselves to consider our own attachments to the goods and pleasures of this world: to they help us to desire the ultimate good of God and Heaven all the more, or do they keep our eyes cast down upon the dust of the earth, our hearts aspiring not to greater things, but lesser things? St. Ignatius reminds us in the First Principal and Foundation that “The other things on the face of the earth are created for the human beings, to help them in the pursuit of the end for which they are created… From this it follows that we ought to use these things to the extent that they help us toward our end, and free ourselves from them to the extent that they hinder us from it.”
If our hearts desire only peace and pleasure in this world, when we die, that is all we will have. If we desire God above all things, if we seek His will and His graces, if God is the chief treasure and longing of our hearts and souls, then that is what we stand to inherit, “…for where your treasure is, there also will your heart be,” (Matthew 6:21).