St James Catholic Church

Dear Parishioners,
We hear Jesus tell his disciples in today’s Gospel, “You cannot serve both God and mammon.” He challenges us to decide where our priorities lie. With which do we spend more time and energy, building up our faith or our wealth? It is difficult to ignore the need for money, if only to have enough to get by, let alone pursuing more so that we can live a comfortable life; but we believe our treasure can be found in the Kingdom of God, in which money is irrelevant. May our Mass today remind us of that truth.
Jesus’ parable of the dishonest steward is not very clear. Should the steward be applauded for his ingenuity and prudence; or scorned for his dishonesty and self-centeredness? Perhaps Jesus is pointing to the stewards’ shrewdness in planning ahead for his expected fate of poverty, and using that to encourage his disciples to be as enterprising in pursuing the Kingdom. After all, for this future, we too are undeserving and dependent on the mercy of others, in this case, God.
Jesus leaves a little something out of his lesson on the responsible use of material wealth. He teaches us that it is important to be trustworthy with dishonest wealth so we can be trusted with true wealth. But he doesn’t tell his disciples what he means by “true wealth.” He contrasts God and mammon, so we know that it is different from material wealth. He speaks often about the Kingdom, so we can guess that true wealth will lead us there. Paul writes in his letter to Timothy that “Christ Jesus gave himself as ransom for all.” We usually think of ransom as a very large amount of money paid to free someone held captive. But here Paul uses ransom to mean a very high price that Jesus paid to free us from the captivity of sin. Rather than material wealth that could be put into a bank account, this true wealth is Jesus’ life, which he freely gives to win us salvation. How do I value true wealth over material wealth?
Love, Peace, Joy,
Fr. Bob