Vol. 37 No. 43             18th  SUNDAY  OF  THE  YEAR             Cycle C                                            AUGUST 1, 2010         --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                        Grow rich in the sight of God  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ENTRANCE ANTIPHON God, come to my help. Lord, quickly give me assistance. You are the one who helps me and sets me free: Lord, do not be long in coming. PENITENTIAL RITE In today’s Gospel Jesus warns us against greed, and stresses on the foolishness of depending on material things for one’s security, rather than on God. Jesus tells us that our main concern should be to ‘make ourselves rich in the sight of God’. Let us acknowledge before the Lord our spiritual poverty and ask pardon for our sins of avarice and greed. (Pause) I confess... Glory to God... OPENING PRAYER Father of everlasting goodness, our origin and guide, be close to us and hear the prayers of all who praise you. Forgive our sins and restore us to life. Keep us safe in your love. Grant this... FIRST READING (Although the way that God deals with people in this life dismays the author of Ecclesiastes yet he believes in the true God. Life makes no sense if it has no deeper goal than achieving worldly success.) A reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes       (1:2;2:21-23) Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. Sometimes a man who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by a man who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and strain with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of pain, and his work is a vexation; even in the night his mind does not rest. This also is vanity. This is the Word of the Lord PSALM       (89) Response: O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next. You turn men back into dust and say: “Go back, sons of men.” To your eyes a thousand years are like yesterday, come and gone, no more than a watch in the night. R./ You sweep men away like a dream, like grass which springs up in the morning, in the morning it springs up and flowers: by evening it withers and fades. R./ Make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart. Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever? Show pity to your servants. R./ In the morning, fill us with your love: We shall exult and rejoice all our days. Let the favour of the Lord be upon us: give success to the work of our hands. R./ SECOND READING (Having been raised up with Christ in baptism, we are to keep God at the centre of life and avoid anything that endangers eternal joy; and we should no longer be mixed up in the sinful things of this world.) A reading from the Letter of St Paul to the Colossians      (3:1-5,9-11) If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.  This is the Word of the Lord ACCLAMATION       (Jn 8:12) Alleluia, alleluia! I am the light of the world, says the Lord; he who follows me will have the light of life. Alleluia! GOSPEL (In the parable of the foolish rich man Jesus speaks to us how unwise it is to store treasures here on earth.) A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Luke     (12:13-21) One of the multitude said to Jesus, “Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?” And he said to them, “Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And 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. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” This is the Gospel of the Lord     I believe in God,/ the Father Almighty,/ Creator of heaven and earth./ I believe in Jesus Christ,/ his only Son, our Lord./ He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit/ and born of the Virgin Mary./ He suffered under Pontius Pilate,/ was crucified, died, and was buried./ He descended to the dead./On the third day he rose again./He ascended into Heaven,/and is seated at the right hand of the Father./ He will come again to judge the living and the dead./ I believe in the Holy Spirit,/the Holy Catholic Church,/ the communion of saints,/ the forgiveness of sins,/ the resurrection of the body,/ and the life everlasting./  Amen.   PRAYER OF THE FAITHFUL Cel: Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us thank and praise God our Father, who has blessed us with lots of material and spiritual goods. Let us pray that we may get our priorities in tune with those of the Gospel. Response: Lord, graciously hear our prayers. 1. Lord, we pray for the Pope, all ordained ministers and religious: that they may keep their eyes fixed on Christ and follow him with unwavering commitment. R./ 2. Lord, we pray for leaders of all nations: that they may use wisely the earth’s resources, share them with poor nations, and take good care of its fragile environment. R./ 3. Lord, we pray our political leaders and those who hold public offices: that they may not seek their own gain or glory but be at the service of all. R./ 4. Lord, we pray for young people: that they may see their proneness to selfish pursuits; penetrate their innermost being with your divine light so that they may live always as children of God. R./ 5. Lord, we pray for all assembled here: make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart which may enable us to love others as you love us. R./ (Pray for local and personal needs)   Cel: Almighty God, cleanse our hearts of greed for material things and from envy of others. Instil in us a desire for spiritual goods and for eternal happiness. We make this prayer through Christ our Lord. PRAYER OVER THE GIFTS Merciful Lord, make holy these gifts, and let our spiritual sacrifice make us an everlasting gift to you. We ask this... PREFACE   (32) Father, all-powerful and ever-living God, we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks through Jesus Christ our Lord. By his birth we are reborn. In his suffering we are freed from sin. By his rising from the dead we rise to everlasting life. In his return to you in glory we enter into your heavenly kingdom. And so, we join the angels and the saints as they sing their unending hymn of praise: All: Holy, holy, holy... COMMUNION ANTIPHON The Lord says: I am the bread of life. A man who comes to me will not go away hungry, and no one who believes in me will thirst. PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION Lord, you give us the strength of new life by the gift of the Eucharist. Protect us with your love and prepare us for eternal redemption. We ask this...     LITURGY  AND  LIFE   Jesus’ parable in today’s Gospel contains a terrible warning about what can happen to a person who does not have his priorities right—about the frustration and despair of a man or woman who places material possessions above their relationship with God. In fact, today’s Gospel is a part of a longer section which deals with the difficultie s that possessions can cause for the disciples of Jesus. Here Jesus refuses to get involved in a family dispute. Instead, he focuses on the cause of the dispute—greed for possessions. Jesus’ parable stresses the foolishness of depending on material things for one’s security rather than on God. In his search for security and happiness in this life, the rich man forgets God, forgets eternal life, and forgets his obligations towards the poor. He is truly a ‘fool’ because he had not known how to use wisely his wealth. Earthly things can never satisfy the human heart. Only God can give us the kind of happiness our hearts long for. Hence, St Paul says, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth” (Col 3:2). And Jesus urges us not to store up treasures on earth but to make ourselves rich in the sight of God. What makes us rich in the sight of God is not what we own, or even what we have achieved, but what we are. It isn’t only material riches and the unholy search for them that today’s Scripture readings warn us against. Seeking intellectual knowledge without reference to benefiting others can also be dangerous, as the First Reading indicates. The wrong search for wisdom, condemned in the First Reading, is an attempt to presume knowledge and control over God. This is the “vanity of vanities” ridiculed by the author of Ecclesiastes. This is not to downgrade education and study, but simply to point out that no matter how intelligent one is, the ways of God are God’s ways—a mystery that always beckons us to more study and more prayer. Avarice, possessiveness, greed for either riches or unholy knowledge—all are self-destructive. May we all learn this truth and amend our lives before we end up foolishly. “If today you hear his voice! Harden not your hearts” (Ps 95:7b-8). When we make wealth or pleasure or power our top priority instead of spiritual riches, we die to the joy of giving, the satisfaction of self-discipline and the happiness of sharing. When we devote all our time and energy to selfish pursuits, death merely discloses the opportunities we have wasted and our poverty of good works. Today Jesus challenges us to re-examine our priorities and the way we use our possessions. Instead of growing rich materially for ourselves, he invites us to grow rich in the sight of God and live wisely and happily. —Fr Sebastian Kattackal, ssp   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   August  2010             READINGS  OF  THE  WEEK            Psalter Week  2 2 Mon (G)    Jer 28:1-17; Ps 118:29&43,79-80,95&102; Mt 14:13-21 3 Tue (G)    Jer 30:1-2,12-15,18-22; Ps 101:16-18,19-21,29&22-23; Mt 14:22-26 4 Wed (W)   St John Vianney, mem Jer 31:1-7; Ps Jer 31:10,11-12ab,13 Mt 15:21-28 5 Thu (G)   Jer 31:31-34; Ps 50:12-13,14-15,18-19; Mt 16:13-23 6 Fri (W)   THE TRANSFIGURATION OF THE LORD, Fst                   Dan 7:9-10,13-14 or 2 Pt 1:16-19; Ps 96:1-2,5-6,9; Lk 9:28b-36 7 Sat (G)   Hab 1:12-2:4; Ps 9:8-9,10-11,12-13; Mt 17:14-20 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------