Avaritia | Greed

And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." – Lk 12:15

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Dear friends in Christ Jesus, we all know that when we live our lives we always are in need of something. We try one or the other way to take care of our needs. This is something normal in our day to day life. Jesus is making us aware that our needs should not be turned into greed. 

When Jesus says be aware of all kinds of greed he does not only mean about wealth or money but all kinds of greed for example greed of food, power etc. Nothing in itself is bad. Sometimes it is our attitude towards things that matter. It is good to have wealth and to be rich. God blesses our lives with richness in all aspects like family, friends, health, money, spirituality etc. We need to be grateful to God and thank him constantly for all his blessings and care. We can also help Jesus in building up his kingdom by sharing our resources and wealth.

We read in Matthew 6:21 – "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." We need to ask ourselves these questions : what are we running up to? Are we running towards only earning money and storing up? Are we looking for names and fame? Am I worried only about me and my life? Am I just looking up to my earthly life? Jesus is happy to bless us abundantly with whatever we need and in fact he knows better what we need than we know ourselves. Jesus wants us to trust in him and not to place our confidence in things that we have or in ourselves. The attitude of relax, eat, drink and be merry destroys our soul.  

Jesus is making us aware today that the earthly treasures that we store up are not rich for him. He is not so pleased with them and our lives do not only consist of them. He wants us to store up treasures in heaven which no one can steal.

Reflection on Luke 12: 13-21 by Fr. George Joseph SVD

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