Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 114

So if you have been raised with Christ seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.


The economic world evolved rapidly during Saint Francis’ brief life. It shifted from a world of barter to cash, much as ours has shifted from cash to credit. A rich man might still own huge tracts of land, but he also controlled mountains of currency. Economically, money is labor distilled to its essence and even people who never worked a day in their life can be rich. If it was hard to estimate how many arable acres you owned and how valuable they might be, money could be counted with precision. Francis wanted no part of it. He insisted his friars should work for food, but not for money.


But later, when his friars preached the gospel in the new paradigms of their time, they spoke of grace as if it could be tabulated. The new society of merchants wanted to know, “How much is a pilgrimage, or a Sunday mass, or a charitable deed worth? How can we count, tabulate and amass heavenly treasure?” The friars cleverly concocted indulgences, and calculated with days. A Hail Mary, for instance, was worth three hundred days indulgence.


Born at the end of that age, I never understood that system. How could the immaterial be counted like dollars and cents? As often happens with currency, indulgences had become inflated. Like the Italian lira, a single day’s indulgence was practically worthless; and the whole system seemed fanciful, if not ridiculous.


But our American system of worth also abuts the absurd. How much is a man worth? Can we estimate his fortune? Standing by the banks of Currency River, I see an awful lot of people drowning. They are dying of alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, divorce, loneliness, greed, fear and suicide. Their piled up riches seem to do them little good. They want but they don’t know what they want; they fear but they cannot name their fears.


They do not know the value of things because they have forgotten the One who created all things. As Saint Augustine said, “They love what they should use; they use what they should love.”


When I was a boy I knew a family who seemed very wealthy. They had a cabin in the woods and a pool in their back yard. What more could anyone want? For all our effort, we had only six, seven, eight, nine and finally ten children! Sometimes the tooth fairy searched our furniture to find pennies for our baby teeth.


Fifty years later the oldest boy in that wealthy family told me, “I always envied your family. You seemed so happy.” He and his siblings have suffered multiple divorce, alcoholism, attempted suicide and premature death. They’re good people but they never knew the value of things.


Seek the things that are above. Jesus may have been speaking of a fanciful treasure chest in heaven with plenary and daily indulgences; but I think it more likely, he was talking about the virtues of habitual sacrifice, instinctive generosity and seeking the common good. In the real world no one is healthy unless everyone has access to health care. No one is secure until everyone is secure. No one eats until everyone eats.