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18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

August 03, 2025

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Introit

Collect

Draw near to your servants, O Lord,

and answer their prayers with unceasing kindness,

that, for those who glory in you as their Creator and guide,

you may restore what you have created

and keep safe what you have restored.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Reading Eccl 1:2, 2:21-23

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 21 Sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? 23 For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

Responsorial Psalm 90: 3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14,1 7

R/. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Second Reading Col 3:1-5, 9-11

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices 10 and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. 11 In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

Gospel Acclamation Mt 5:3

Gospel Lk 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But Jesus said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And Jesus said to the crowd, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16 Then Jesus told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Catena Nova

Seek what suffices, seek what is enough, and don’t desire more. Whatever goes beyond that produces anxiety not relief: it will weigh you down instead of lifting you up….Greed will demand of you labor, danger, hardships, and troubles, and you will readily agree to its demands. And for what purpose? So you can have what will fill up your purse but empty out your peace of mind! (St. Augustine of Hippo)

Whatever you possess must not possess you; whatever you own must be under the power of your soul; for if your soul is overpowered by the love of this world’s goods, it will be totally at the mercy of its possessions. In other words, we make use of temporal things, but our hearts are set on what is eternal. Temporal goods help us on our way, but our desire must be for those eternal realities which are our goal. (St. Gregory the Great)

Who could count all those who have had wealth, power, honor? But their glory, their riches were only lent to them, and they wore themselves out in preserving and increasing that which they were forced to abandon one day. (St. Ignatius of Loyola)

There is a difference between possessing poison and being poisoned. Pharmacists keep almost every kind of poison in stock for use on various occasions, yet they are not themselves poisoned because it is merely in their shops, not in their bodies. So, too, you can possess riches without being poisoned by them if you keep them in your home, purse or wallet, but not in your heart. (St. Francis de Sales)

The more deeply people realize that Christ is the essential the less concerned they will be about everything else…. This is a tremendous truth. Christ is the condition for the realization of the providential order established by God. In telling us the story of the wealthy landowner Jesus is trying to anchor the hearts and minds of disciples in reality! Jesus wants us to know what counts in God’s eyes and what doesn’t.... Very gently, Jesus is immunizing us to all “unreality”. Faith enables us to distinguish between what is “real” enough to last forever and what is not.... If we follow Jesus in faith we become invulnerable to worldly wisdom and its values. Jesus is the Truth and that makes Jesus the Way who leads all who follow him to real Life. (Romano Guardini)

No matter what our aims may be, no matter how spiritual, no matter how intent we think we are upon the glory of God and his kingdom, greed and passion enter into our work and turn it into agitation as soon as our intention ceases to be pure. And who can swear that his intentions are pure, even down to the subconscious depths of his will, where ancient selfish motives move comfortably like forgotten sea monsters in waters where they are never seen! In order to defend ourselves against agitation, we must be detached not only from the immediate results of our work – and this detachment is difficult and rare – but from the whole complex of aims that govern our security, from pleasures and possessions, from people and places and conditions and things. We have to be indifferent to life itself, in the Gospel sense, living like the lilies of the field, seeking first the kingdom of Heaven and trusting that all our material needs will be taken care of into the bargain. How many of us can say, with any assurance, that we have even begun to live like this? (Thomas Merton)

The mystics — to give them their short, familiar name — are men and women who insist that they know for certain the presence and activity of that which they call the Love of God. They are conscious of that Fact which is there for all, and which is the true subject-matter of religion; but of which the average person remains either unconscious or faintly and occasionally aware. They know a spiritual order, penetrating, and everywhere conditioning through transcending the world of sense. They declare to us a Reality most rich and living, which is not a reality of time and space; which is something other than everything we mean by “nature,” and for which no merely pantheistic explanation will suffice. These men and women therefore give precision and an objective to that more or less vague thirst for the Infinite and Unchanging which, even in the rudimentary form in which most of us yet possess it, is surely the most wonderful of all possessions; that sense of another and unearthly scale of values pressing in on them; that strange appreciation of, and craving for, an unchanging Reality utterly distinct from themselves which is the raw material of all religion. (Evelyn Underhill)

Homily

Who Wants to Be a Billionaire? I changed the name of the quiz show due to inflation. After all, what's a million dollars these days? The most recent studies have shown, for example, that a family of four in New York State needs an annual income of $276,973 to live comfortably. Of course, that depends on where you live in the state. A "living wage" in Rochester, with two working adults with two children is a paltry $124,387 by comparison. (MIT Living Wage Calculator; June 11, 2025). Upstate, anyone?

As for retirement, you'd better brush up on your trivia, since in larger American cities you'll need well over that million dollars in savings, though in relatively cheap Rochester retirees spend only $57,835 annually (USA Today; July 25, 2025). Still not ready to move?

Now phrases like "living wage" and "live comfortably" are rather slippery, no? My parents, for example, lived comfortably by 1960s standards, but something tells me they wouldn't make the grade today. Not to mention my Italian immigrant grandparents. But I wouldn't change a thing about growing up when, where and how I did. For it all comes down to how much we really need, doesn't it?

A few weeks ago we were treated to the spectacle of a $50 million, give or take, wedding in Venice of the second richest man in the United States — worth about $197 billion. Vanity of vanities, [I think] Qoheleth would say. He'd probably say the same about America's richest man who's seen a quarter of his fortune decline in recent months. Apparently, his failed bromance with another billionaire lacked a prenup — and besides you don't get rich from government efficiency. Qoheleth might add, All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation; even at night his mind is not at rest. This also is vanity. (I)

Still, you've got to hand it to those billionaires. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis updated their stats on the share of net worth held by the top 0.1% — the multi-billionaire class — to be 14% of the total wealth of the country (June 25, 2025). The less fortunate 1% of households in the US owned about 30% of the wealth in 2023. (USA Facts) while the far less comfortable 10% controls 60% of the wealth (USA Today; October 24, 2024). All the while "big, beautiful" policies of the federal government continue to provide tax cuts to these upper echelons, cut funding for the already frayed social safety net, and increase military and immigration enforcement spending (Bipartisan Policy Center; July 23, 2025).

Little-noticed in all of this is the steady transfer of wealth from one generation to the next. About $84 trillion is expected to pass from seniors and baby boomers to Gen X, millennials and their heirs through 2045. I hear Qoheleth again: [Here are those who have] labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and yet to another who has not labored over it, [they] must leave property. This also is vanity and a great misfortune. (Cf. I).

Worse, about three in ten wealthy people say their families experience emotional strain over inheritance with most pointing to interpersonal family dynamics as the source. (Bank of America Private Bank Study of Wealthy Americans; 2024). They better not look to Jesus to settle such disputes. As he said to someone in the crowd [who asked], “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” [And] he replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”

Which, of course, bring us to uncomfortable gospel truth. Though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions. While all the investment portfolios, all the political conniving, all the hoarding, all the Epicurean eating, drinking and making merry can prevent the great Equalizer from calling on us, often when we least expect, to say, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’

But you don't have to wait until the day your life will be demanded of you. (G) Why not? Because you've already died. Paul said it: You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And just how did you die? He told us last week: You were buried with Christ in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. So that's how. While today he adds, If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.

Yet, there are still pesky parts of us not entirely left behind in the baptismal tomb. So Paul reminds us, Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry. (II)

Ah yes, greed. Idolatry he calls it — the sin against the First Commandment. So we need to be careful how what we think is a "living wage" in order to "live comfortably" doesn't end up a graven image whom we worship rather than the living God. Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God. (G). Who with the Son and the Holy Spirit, live and reign, world without end. Amen.

Intercessions (Joe Milner; The Sunday Web Site)

For the Church: that we may recognize our dependence upon God for all things and let go of our attempts to control our own lives.

For a greater sense of the common good: that we may recognize that God’s gifts are for the benefit of the whole human family and never allow them to become idols that control us.

For freedom from anxiety: that we may never be seduced by the illusions of wealth, fame, power, or control, nor allow these to dominate our lives.

For an end to discrimination: that God will help us recognize the dignity of each person and never judge them on appearance, status in life, nor cultural origin.

For all who bear the burden of poverty: that God will sustain them each day, open new opportunities for them to use their gifts, and open our hearts to be generous in their time of need.

For all who live in the midst of violence: that God will break the cycle of violence, protect them from harm, and bring peace to their communities.

For wisdom and inspiration for government and legislative leaders: that God will give them insight into the true issues and the needed steps for change to promote the welfare of everyone.

For peace: that God will open new opportunities for dialogue between national leaders, increase their concern for the common good, and free them from the constraints of their egos.

O God, the giver of every gift that endures, only by your grace can we rightly understand the wonder of life and why it is given. By the word of your Son challenge our foolishness, confront our greed, and shape our lives to the wisdom of the gospel. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. (ICEL; 1998)

Offertory Anthem (Orlando Gibbons)

If ye be risen again with Christ,
seek those things which are above
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection on heavenly things
and not on earthly things, for ye are dead,
and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Whensoever Christ, which is our life, shall show himself.
Then shall we also appear with him in glory. Amen.

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