Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Link to Mass Readings: http://www.usccb.org/nab/080110.shtml

“Teach us to number our days aright,/ that we may gain wisdom of heart.”

In the readings today, we hear repeated the mantra: our lives are short, and death could happen at any time. And if we die, for what purpose is the work we have done?

Qoheleth says that there is no purpose; when we die, all that we have worked for we must leave to someone else who has not worked for it. All the effort we give, will eventually be for someone else. Even to worry about it is useless, because the outcome won’t change. Qoheleth calls this vanity.

In the Gospel Jesus tells a story about a man who will work hard so that he can spend his remaining years in peace, saying to himself: “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!” But as soon as he speaks he dies. Now all those years of work have been wasted.

Both these readings serve to reinforce the idea that our wealth can never be in the world. Either it can be taken away from us, or we will have to surrender it to someone else. Instead, Paul tells us that as we have been raised in Christ, we should seek what is above. All that is earthly will fade, and when Christ comes those things will be meaningless.

The readings last week taught us to pray the Our Father in poverty, but to be rich in the Holy Spirit. Our wealth should be in the new world, the one we have inherited through Christ. For he is the one who has labored and died, and we are the ones who have inherited what he worked for.

Psalm 90 tells us: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” We only live for a short time. Death is real, and all things end. We will die, and the world will die, and only those things transformed by Christ will last. And we don’t know when either of those things will happen. All we have is this moment to choose Christ, and every moment we don’t or we turn away from him we waste in foolishness.