{"id":8727,"date":"2019-08-04T00:15:57","date_gmt":"2019-08-04T07:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lubukhati.org\/?p=8727"},"modified":"2019-08-04T00:15:57","modified_gmt":"2019-08-04T07:15:57","slug":"greed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/?p=8727","title":{"rendered":"Greed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

18th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time [C]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

August 4, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke 12:13-21<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were all born without bringing anything with us, and for sure, when we\ndie, we will bring nothing with us. Job once said, “Naked I came forth\nfrom my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back there. The LORD gave, and the\nLORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!” (Job 1:21).\nHowever, as we grow up and old, we begin to acquire things and possessions.\nSome are given, but some we earn it. As we are accumulating, we start attaching\nourselves to these material belongings. Some of us are obsessed with collecting\nbags, shoes, and clothes, some others with more expensive things like\nelectronic devices and cars. We believe these are ours, and we can own them\nuntil the Kingdom comes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of attachment is rooted in a bigger and more sinister vice:\ngreed. St. Thomas Aquinas defines greed or avarice as \u201can inordinate desire for\nwealth or money.\u201d To desire for richness and possession is not evil itself\nbecause, in essence, money and belongings are a means to achieve higher goals\nin life. However, the problem arises when we are confusing between means and\nthe end. Greed enters the picture when we make money as our goal and no longer\na means. We begin to measure our happiness and meaningfulness of our lives in\nterms of wealth. When we place wealth as our yardstick of happiness, all other\nproblems start flooding our lives. When we do not have enough money, we become\nanxious, but when we have more than enough money, we are also anxious about how\nto hoard them. We think that the more we have, the happier we become, but the\ntruth is, the more we acquire, the more we feel lacking. An ancient Roman\nproverb once said that desire for wealth is like drinking seawater; the more\nyou drink, the thirstier you get. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What sickening about this vice is that it brings other sins along. St.\nThomas mentions treachery, corruption, fraud, anxiety, insensibility to mercy,\nand even violence as the daughters of greed. Movie Slumdog Millionaire (2008)\ntells us a story of Salim and Jamal Malik who are victims of this injustice and\ngreed. After the killing of their mother because of religious hatred in slam\narea in India, they were forced to stay in a sanitary landfill. Then, they were\nadopted by \u2018professional beggars\u2019 syndicate. One particular scene that reveals\nthe gruesome manifestation of greed is one little boy with a sweet voice,\nArwind, was blinded. Jamal later remarks, \u201cBlind singers earn double.\u201d The\nworst part of the movie is that the movie is not totally fiction, but many\nevents are true to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how are we going to cure this vice? If greed makes us turn means as\ngoal, our response should return the right order: to make wealth as our means\nto achieve higher goals. If we are blessed with a lot of money, we praise the\nLord and use this money to praise the Lord even more. If we do not have enough\nmoney, we are called to have more faith in God\u2019s providence.  It is the time to use our worldly possession\nto make \u201cheavenly investment\u201d that no thief can reach, nor moth destroy (Lk.\n12:33)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fr. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were all born without bringing anything with us, and for sure, when we die, we will bring nothing with us. Job once said, “Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!” (Job 1:21). However, as we grow up and old, we begin to acquire things and possessions. Some are given, but some we earn it. As we are accumulating, we start attaching ourselves to these material belongings. Some of us are obsessed with collecting bags, shoes, and clothes, some others with more expensive things like electronic devices and cars. We believe these are ours, and we can own them until the Kingdom comes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[57,58],"class_list":["post-8727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-renungan","tag-english","tag-sunday-reflection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8728,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8727\/revisions\/8728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}