Meditation: 25th Sunday Ordinary Time

Modern American culture is obsessed with profit. It is obsessed with riches and luxuries. We are taught to praise those who use cunning in order to amass more wealth than anyone could possibly have any real use for save that of the gratification of earthly desire.

And yet God condemns very harshly this attitude. He condemns this materialism and devotion to earthly goods and worldly ways of gaining opulent wealth, and we hear it very clearly in the reading from Amos, wherein God says that he will not forget the works of those who take advantage of the needy for their own gain.

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us a parable about a dishonest steward who goes to all of his master's debtors in order to make deals with them. He is afraid of being destitute and so does what he can to gain their favor. The master praises him for his shrewdness and Christ tells us that the children of the world are wiser in temporal wealth than the children of light are in dealing with the true wealth.

The true wealth that we are given is the Deposit of Faith and the Eucharist. And yet we are careless with it. We compromise doctrine and seek to justify our sins. In timidity we bow to the cries of the world and give people false comfort in their sins. This is not loving, and if we continue on this path we will lose our inheritance. We will fail to gain the beatific vision and be condemned to eternal torment.

God gives us a very clear choice. We can either serve Him or we can serve mammon, but it is impossible to serve both. To serve mammon is to despise the God who loves us, while to serve Him is to despise mammon and the things of this world.

Let us serve God. Let us reject worldly ways and follow the counsel of St. Paul, to pray for all men whom our Lord desires to come to know the truth, to know that Christ sacrificed himself to pay or debts and gain our salvation.

(Image courtesy wikiquote.org)

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