By Fr. Steve Tynan

Money, money, money must be funny in a rich man’s world.

These lyrics come from a song by Abba written in the midst of the excesses of the ’70 and ‘80s. In a certain way, these words capture something of a sentiment that can be hidden in all of our hearts. Perhaps it is expressed even more succinctly in the cry Russian peasant Topol in Fiddler on the Roof,“If I were a rich man...”

Today it is an often heard sentiment, “if I won lot of money, after spending some on myself, family and friends. I would give some to the poor.” Would you really?

Is it wrong to desire to be rich? Probably not. However, is this the sort of desire that God wants us to spend our efforts trying to fulfill? I do not think so! It is all a question of priority and living in reality. We would spend the rest of our lives dreaming about having riches and what we would do with them. But that would not serve any useful purpose except our won disillusionment, which come to think of it, is not really terribly useful! I think God would much prefer us to live in the here and now and seek to bring about His Kingdom with what resources we have at our disposal, rather than forever wishing that our situation be different.

Jesus warned His disciples that they could not serve both God and money (Mathew 6:24). What does Jesus mean by this? Money and God cannot have equal status in our lives. One will inevitably take priority. This is why we must beg God for the grace to choose Him over and above anyone or anything else in our lives.

The Focal Point of our Desires

St. Augustine writes at the beginning of his autobiography The Confessions, that since God has created us for union with Himself, our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. It is clear to Augustine that the focal point of our desires, if we want fulfillment in our lives, must be God and His Kingdom and not the things of the kingdom of this world (Mathew 6:33).

The happiest people I meet in my ministry as a priest are rarely the richest in fact, the simpler a person’s life, the less cluttered with ‘thing’ the happier he seems to be. Think of Mother Theresa. She had so few possessions yet would people who ever lived!  Why? Her heart, mind and soul were set on eternal life – not the things of this world which will ultimately perish (Matthew 19:21).

What is the deepest desire of your heart, the treasure of your heart? St. Paul reminds us that the treasure we carry in our hearts is the death and resurrection of Jesus! 2 Corinthians 4: 7-12) If Christ is the true treasure and desire of our hearts then what room is there for the desire to be rich? Only the little room, I would think! The love of and desire for God is something which will consume and overcome all other desires if we are growing in holiness each day.

This is the experience of St. Francis of Assisi, the son of a wealthy cloth merchant, who on encountering Jesus in his life found that the wealth of his family meant nothing to him any more. Consequently, he forsook the wealth in favor of his new true love: Lady Poverty! In discovering his nothingness before God, St. Francis discovered an even greater truth: the truth of Divine Providence; that God’s provision was enough for Him (Matthew 6: 25-34).

There is a particular Scripture verse that we need to consider in some detail:

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils; it wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many fangs. (1Timothy 6:9-10).

This verse urges us to examine what the true focus of our desires should be. It also reminds us of the astonishment of the apostles when Jesus said it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle (Mark 10: 25). These are only two of many texts that warn the believer of the dangers of riches.

St. Paul, in his letter to Timothy, says the desire for wealth can be our downfall! Why? Because the desire for wealth can very easily consume a person to the point that the true focus for his life, namely relationships with God, is lost – if not completely, then at least partially.

First, The Kingdom

Matthew 6: 33 reads: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things (food, clothes, house, etc,) will be yours also. This is not to say that we do not have a responsibility to take care of our marital needs and those of others’. But that the ordering of our hearts’ desire must reflect that our ultimate fulfillment rests in our relationships with God and not in the material thing of this world. It is precisely to this truth that the many Christian martyrs attest.

Are you willing to be a martyr for your faith? Are you willing to put Jesus above and before everything else in your life?

It is only Jesus who is capable of bringing you true fulfillment that will give you a constant peace in your heart. Think back to the tragedy of Princess Diana’s death. We were told that for more reason or another her life was not one of fulfillment. She wanted to retire and live away from the public eye. I wonder what her initial feelings, expectations and desires were when she agreed to marry Prince Charles? I wonder if she thought the wealth and fame would or could contribute to her happiness as a person. Sadly the answers was, ‘No.’ All her wealth and fame had brought her little fulfillment. In fact it had brought her much anguish and pain and, some say, contributed not a little to her tragic death.

On the other hand, when we consider the death of Mother Theresa, we have very different reflection. Here is a woman who had almost nothing in the way of material possession yet, I would argue, was almost totally fulfilled in her experience of life. She had one focus: to serve God with all that she had. And she did it! She did not need any personal wealth to be fulfilled because she recognized that the type of fulfillment that will last forever comes from a totally different source, and that source is Jesus Christ. We take nothing of the material riches we have in this world into the next. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to be judicial and temperate in our use of these riches in this life.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being rich. But if the riches begin to consume your life by choice or by default, then there is a problem – and usually a big one at that! They say that the richer you are, the richer you desire to be. Money is seductive in the same way that power can be seductive in the same way that power can be seductive. And neither can buy salvation just as neither can by lasting love and friendship.

The problem wit money or, for that matter, any material possession, comes when it begins to control them. Consider the creation account in Genesis 1: 28-30.

God gives us stewardship or dominion over all created things. He does not give us owner-ship as such. Everything still belongs to God. When we in our pride begin to appropriate ownership of created things for ourselves, we move outside of God’s will for us.

For example, no person today considers slavery to be morally justifiable. It is not correct for a person to be owned by another person. Similarly the natural and created wealth of the world: no country, corporation or individual really owns anything in an absolute sense. Yes, they may have temporary ownership of land, houses, etc., but this ownership ought to be more correctly seen as stewardship in the light of the Gospel. Why? The psalmist often affirms that all created things belong to God. If this is the case then we have been entrusted with their use not just for our humanity. We do not so much as own benefit and the benefit of others.

They say that the richer you are, the richer you desire to be.

Salamat sa Kerygma