Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Jesuit priests, and their companions, martyrs of Canada, are remembered today in an optional memorial, and on this Monday of the twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time the Church reads from the letter to the Ephesians. Our difficulty is the conviction that life is secured by what we store up. The readings answer it in three steps: Paul, the psalm and a parable about barns.
And someone from the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Man, who has appointed me as judge or arbitrator over you?" So he said to them: "Be cautious and wary of all avarice. For a person's life is not found in the abundance of the things that he possesses." Then he spoke to them using a comparison, saying: "The fertile land of a certain wealthy man produced crops. And he thought within himself, saying: 'What should I do? For I have nowhere to gather together my crops.' And he said: 'This is what I will do. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And into these, I will gather all the things that have been grown for me, as well as my goods. And I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods, stored up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, and be cheerful.' But God said to him: 'Foolish one, this very night they require your soul of you. To whom, then, will those things belong, which you have prepared?' So it is with him who stores up for himself, and is not wealthy with God." (Lk 12:13-21)
Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, writes to the Christians of Ephesus with a severity that begins at the grave: they were once "dead in your sins and offenses" (Ep 2:1). He counts himself among them, for all of us once followed the desires of the flesh and our own thoughts, and the selfish tendencies they feed are not easily resisted. Such a life is closed in upon itself and cannot rescue itself, because only another hand can raise the dead.
But God, "who is rich in mercy" (Ep 2:4), does not leave the dead where they lie. Out of his great charity he enlivens us together with Christ, raises us up with him and gives us a seat in the heavens. Mercy is thus not something we earn, but the pure grace by which God, who watches over us, makes us live again with Christ.
And this life is a gift in the strictest sense: "For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not of yourselves, for it is a gift of God" (Ep 2:8). No deed of ours, however heroic or ascetic, produces it, and so no one has reason for pride. Even faith is received, and everything thus becomes grace. That grace is seldom dazzling, but it comes quietly, as the grace that suffices for today's step, and the small graces of each day gather into the one great gift.
"Know that the Lord himself is God. He made us, and we ourselves did not" (Ps 99:3): the psalm turns the same truth into a shout of joy. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture, and Paul adds that we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus. God made us and goes on making us each day, so that we may bear the likeness of his Son. A life that is made can only be received as a gift.
What does a man really ask when he asks for his share? Someone in the crowd begs Jesus to tell his brother to divide the inheritance, and Jesus declines the office of judge or arbitrator. He goes to the root instead: "Be cautious and wary of all avarice. For a person's life is not found in the abundance of the things that he possesses" (Lk 12:15). But money is only a symbol, and what it stands for is the hope of holding life in our own hands.
Then comes the parable. A fertile estate yields more than its owner can hold, so he resolves to tear down his barns and build larger ones. Sharing the surplus with the needy never crosses his mind; he thinks he can buy life, lock it away and master it. Nor should we blame the market of our own age, for this reflex is far older than any advertisement and belongs to every human heart.
And yet the barns are never finished, because God interrupts the builder: "Foolish one, this very night they require your soul of you. To whom, then, will those things belong, which you have prepared?" (Lk 12:20). The man who thought he possessed his life learns that it was never his to keep. In one instant he stands poor in love, in faith and in hope, because the goods meant to serve him had quietly become his masters. To be rich toward God is the reverse: to hold everything as given and to let it pass to others.
In the spirituality of Bethlehem, the only barns worth building are hands that open. The Child of Bethlehem comes with nothing to keep, and yet he lacks nothing, since a son receives everything from the Father and holds it as a gift. Jesus himself opens the granaries of the heart, and he shows that life is fulfilled in giving and never in taking. A son does not store up against his Father; he lives from the Father's house, with open hands.
Today the Word of God invites us to leave the center of our lives, so that God may be God in them and love, offered and shared, may be our one lasting wealth. We are asked to look at what we store in our homes, our work and our prayer. So let us open the barns as Jesus opens them, and receive the life that was never ours to keep.
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Lord Jesus, Child of Bethlehem, you came into the world with open hands and held nothing back from the Father. Raise us from every closed life, and teach us to receive each day as a gift. Free us from the barns we keep building, and make us rich toward God and generous toward the poor, so that your grace may suffice for us and for all whom we meet. Amen.
For Meditation
- What are we storing against tomorrow, and what would we do with it if this very night were asked of us?
- Which small graces of this day have we overlooked because they did not dazzle us?
- Where could we turn something we keep into something we share?
