Beloved parishioners,
Hope your summer is going well? Next weekend is our Annual Corn and Sausage Roast. I invite everyone to help make this event a huge success. I miss you all; but I am consoled because we are united at the table of the Lord’s Body and Blood.
Qoheleth, the protagonist of the book of Ecclesiastes, speaks of the vanity of human existence. All our toils under the sun amount to nothing. At face value, this represents a dark and nihilistic attitude to life. It would be a terrible way to live if one held such an extremely negative view about life. We believe that the world was created good by God, and it is the best world that God could create. The evils we see in the world are largely consequences of human sin. The First Reading for this weekend cautions against any unrestrained attachments to this world because it is temporal and passing away (1 Corinthians 7:31; 1 John 2:17; James 4:14). This awareness should help orient our hearts to give value to the more important things. This is what Paul exhorts the Colossians to do in the Second Reading. He urges them to lift their hearts to heaven, where Christ is. Like the Colossians, we too have died with Christ. In baptism we were buried with him and we rose with him. We have been grafted unto Christ and we have a new identity.
The readings this weekend speak to the futility of a life lived without reference to Christ. Our Lord Jesus warns against avarice. He understands the importance of right ordering to our lives, as a person’s life is not dependent on what they possess. The rich man in the gospel lived his life without reference to God. It was a sad end. Jesus would not allow himself to be manipulated by the man who requested that he arbitrates between him and his brother over landed property. Jesus recognizes the temporality of material possessions and life. Whatever we have now will pass away; it is only a matter of time. The things that mattered to us many years ago are not priority for us today. In the same way, many years from now, some of the things we fuss over now would be irrelevant. It is therefore important to have our hearts where it really matters. So, I ask you, where is your heart? What are you anxious about? What keeps you awake at night? Let us take to heart the exhortation of St. Paul to the Philippians: “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).
As temporal citizens of this world while we anticipate our heavenly homeland, let us continue to press on by prioritizing our lives and not be distracted by things of less importance. Wisdom consists in keeping things in proper perspective. We pray with the psalmist, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.”