Aug 5, 2007 Sunday: 18th Sunday Ordinary (C)
A couple of years ago when I was going down to Mexico for Spanish immersion for 5 weeks, I and five other seminarians joined about 30 university students from Mississippi. When we arrived in the Mexico City airport, we had to walk at least a mile through the airport to get to our bus. But many students packed more than they could wheel or carry. Each had two very large suit cases filled to its capacity; each probably brought enough change of clothes to wear a different outfit for two weeks. But Mexico City Airport is not convenient like our own airports. Some places they did not have escalators. And the wheels on some of the students' bags broke off, and they had to carry their heavy luggage down stairways. And when we finally got to the bus, we filled the bottom luggage section so quickly that we had to carry them on board the bus, piling the aisles, our seats, and our laps. And would you know, after 5 weeks, we had even more luggage because we bought souvenirs, new clothes, and pottery. We were way over-packed for the purpose of the trip.
Know the purpose of the trip, travel light, and take only what's necessary. That is what Our Lord is telling us in the Gospel today. Jesus uses an example of a rich man who has enough material goods already but who preoccupies himself with packing away more than what's necessary. He builds an even larger barn to store excess harvests. But as the new barn is coming to completion, the rich man dies. All that time he worried about what to do with the extra harvest and all that extra effort to squirrel away the harvest was all in vain. Our first reading from Ecclesiastes explains this so beautifully, “Vanities of vanities. Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and yet to another who has not labored it, he must leave property. For what profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun? All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation; even at night his mind is not at rest. This is also vanity.” And Jesus adds to this wisdom, “Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”
Do we realize that we are only passing through this world as a traveler? Jesus reminds us that after our short earthly journey, we are coming home, and all that we need is already at home in heaven so we don't need to bring anything. Unfortunately, we are usually preoccupied with packing for the journey here on earth rather than for the journey home to heaven. But how do you pack for our journey to heaven? What do you take and what do you leave off? I know a few people who can help us learn how to pack for the journey home to heaven.
The Mother Teresa sisters are masters at packing for the journey home to heaven. Each sister is given three habits or saris. One is for wearing it today, another one is for tomorrow, and the third one is for the feast days and Sundays. And daily they wash the habit they wore the day before. Each sister is given a pair of sandals—usually a cheap rubber kind you can find for a dollar or two at Wal-Mart. And finally, each is given a cross, a rosary, and a prayer book. That's it. Every three years, each sister is asked to move to another convent in a different state or a different country. And when they move, all their belongings can fit into a cardboard box—about the size of a box that a new DVD player comes in.
In addition, they voluntarily deny themselves of comfort. I go to their convent about once a week to expose the Blessed Sacrament and do benediction. Normally, the sisters do not use air conditioning or fan for themselves, especially when they pray or sleep. But for my sake, they turn on the fan and the A/C. They also provide me with a foam pad to kneel while they kneel for an hour and a half on the concrete without any pads. They sleep on simple pads and not on fancy beds. Although they receive donations of variety of delicious cooked foods to be used in the soup kitchen, they do not eat what they receive. Instead, they cook simple meals of grain and vegetables. They do not read news papers, watch TV, or listen to radio. What they do plenty of is make sacrifices, pray, and walk long distances to visit the homebound and the poor. Despite their hard life, I have yet to see signs of sadness and discomfort.
Their preoccupation and lifestyle is the exact opposite of the rich man we read in the gospel today. Whereas the rich man worries about how to satiate himself with security and comfort, these sisters deny themselves, emptying themselves of desire for comfort and security. They are emptying themselves so that they can be filled with God and to belong only to God. Mother Teresa instructed the sisters to fight against their own ego and against love of comfort that might lead them to choose a comfortable and insignificant mediocrity. Instead, the sisters are disciplining themselves to live the Kingdom of God here and now. This is what Jesus meant by, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”
Although we have not taken radical vows of poverty and charity as the Mother Teresa sisters, we are nevertheless to imitate the spirit of their lifestyle—denying ourselves so that we might empty ourselves of immorality, impurity, evil desire, and greed as St. Paul instructs us in our Second Reading. And we are to fill ourselves, instead, with riches that matters to God—our single hearted love for Our Lord.
