Reflection
We live in a society that inordinately values property, income, status, social standing, and material wealth. We can easily become totally self-absorbed and preoccupied with possessions and lose our spiritual grounding The attitude that things are of primary importance leads to greed, and greed inevitably corrupts whatever it touches. Greed is “wanting more than what you already have enough of.” Unfortunately, greed is a powerful motivator in our society. Advertising companies realize this. Commercials teach how much better your life would be with just another possession. The lack of a Divine Center and our need for security leads us to an attachment to things. To be centered in God enables us to measure our own worth by who we are not by what we own. Persons rich in God are wealthy because they are at peace with God, others and themselves. They are rich in God because they are certain of God’s unfailing, unconditional love.
Prayer
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the greatness of the power would be from God and not from us.
2 Corinthians 4:7
Action
Reflect on where your “treasure” is. What does it mean for you to be “rich in God”?
Suggested Reading
And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, `What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops? And he said, `I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and
there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, `Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
Luke 12;13-21
Those who trust in their riches will wither, but the righteous will flourish like green leaves.
Proverbs 11:28
Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and it even puts at risk our common home.
Pope Francis
It’s possible to have too much in life. Too many clothes jade our appreciation for new ones; too much money can put us out of touch with life; too much free time can dull the edge of the soul. We need sometimes to come very near the bone so that we can taste the marrow of life rather than its superfluities.
Joan Chittister
The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are.
Mother Teresa
It has always seemed strange to me… the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.
John Steinbeck
Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.
Erich Fromm
If you aren’t happy for what you already have then what makes you think you will be happy with more.
Maddy Malhotra
A very disappointing outcome is always destined to happen to anyone who chases material things in search of happiness.
Edmond Mbiaka
Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
Henry David Thoreau
Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.
Will Rogers