True wealth

28th Sunday, Cycle B
Reading: Mark 10:17-30

I am reminded of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, particularly, the meditation on the three pairs of men as a prelude to asking for the gift of poverty a person must have in order to give glory to God and to work out his salvation.

All three men received 10 thousand ducats, an estimate of about 1 million dollars today. The three pairs are all concerned with pleasing God and saving their souls. The first one promised to remain faithful to God and want to rid themselves of the hindrance the money brings to them, but they ended up not placing the means even at the hour of death.

The second pair also want to please God, save their souls by ridding themselves of the attachment, but they remain with the thing acquired, so that God should come where they want and so they don't leave it, although it would be best for them.

The third pair would also have the same disposition, but to rid it or to keep it is not the issue, for they have remained detached to it, even abhorred it, for to place themselves in the total service of the Divine Majesty is their ultimate and real joy.

The moral of the story is not whether to choose the gift of actual poverty or not, to feel attraction or repugnance to it, but to crush the disordered tendency so as to place oneself at the total service and praise of the Divine Goodness.

Are we intent in totally serving the Divine Majesty and to give joy to Him? Would we opt to make it our life's goal, to sell everything we have so that the only thing that remains to give our Lord is us? Would it not please the Lord if we use everything we have to serve others?

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