"Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me." How many families end up splitting apart over matters of possessions! How much resentment, hatred, distance, and suffering that attachment to material things produces. People come to consider money more valuable than blood ties. It’s no coincidence that the lust for possessions, and money above all, is one of the tools most used by evil to hold us captive.
Jesus tells a parable in today's gospel to warn us against such a temptation. The main character is a man, probably an honest man who works every day, on whom life smiles giving him an abundance of harvest. So far, there’s nothing unusual.
But Jesus puts into the mouth of this honest man a line of reasoning that on the surface seems to be harmless, but at bottom hides a trap:
The opposite of hoarding is not squandering, but sharing. Those who are overly attached to things and ignore the needs of those around them will end up with full warehouses and empty lives. Remembering that we are not eternal should not frighten us, but make us aware that what matters is never things, but relationships.
~
Father Luigi Maria Epicoco is a priest of the Aquila Diocese and teaches Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University and at the ISSR ‘Fides et ratio,’ Aquila. He dedicates himself to preaching, especially for the formation of laity and religious, giving conferences, retreats and days of recollection. He has authored numerous books and articles. Since 2021, he has served as the Ecclesiastical Assistant in the Vatican Dicastery for Communication and columnist for the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
