Sunday Reading

18^th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Cycle C)

Readings:
Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23
Psalms 90:3-5, 12-14, 17
Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11
Luke 12:13-21

Abbreviations: NJB (New Jerusalem Bible), IBHE (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English), NABRE (New American Bible Revised St. Joseph Edition), IBGE (Interlinear Bible Greek-English), or LXX (Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation). CCC designates a citation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The word LORD or GOD rendered in all capital letters is, in the Hebrew text, God's Divine Name YHWH (Yahweh).

God reveals His divine plan for humanity in the two Testaments, which is why we read and relive the events of salvation history contained in the Old and New Testaments in the Church's Liturgy. The Catechism teaches that the Liturgy reveals the unfolding mystery of God's plan as we read the Old Testament in light of the New and the New Testament in light of the Old (CCC 1094-1095).

The Theme of the Readings: What Makes Life Meaningful?
The Bible teaches that life extends beyond the temporal world; therefore, our lives only make sense if we can relate them to lasting values. If we only focus on perishable values, we make no lasting contribution. In the First Reading, the inspired writer tells us that material wealth, earthly wisdom, and its illusion of prosperity are all in vain; these are temporal works that are fleeting and without a real purpose or lasting reward. Only when we relate our lives to God by building a relationship with Him in prayer and worship, by coming to understand His divine plan for humanity through the study of Sacred Scripture, and by sharing God's love for us with others can we can say we invested our efforts in a worthwhile life.

In the Responsorial Psalm, the inspired writer tells us that only God, in His mercy, gives meaning to life. The psalmist asks God for His loving kindness and to experience gladness in His blessings. He professes to be gratefully satisfied with what God has given, even with the struggles and sufferings that are part of life. There are no bad days for someone who loves God and has faith in Him to guide their life's journey. Each passing day is a gift because it is an opportunity to serve the Lord if you "hear His voice" and "harden not your hearts."

In the Second Reading, St. Paul reminds the Christian faith community of the Colossians and us that in the Sacrament of Christian Baptism, we have died to self-interest and sin, and God's Spirit has raised us to a new life in Christ Jesus. Therefore, Christians called the Sacrament of Baptism the "first resurrection." The focus of our lives must, therefore, be Christ, who promises us a share in His life of glory. However, St. Paul warns that the rejection of sin is an ongoing process that must result in living in the Spirit, who transforms us into the image and likeness of Christ. All baptized believers in Christ submit their lives to God's will in their resurrected new spiritual existence, becoming children in the family of God and heirs of Christ. Living in fellowship with Jesus makes our present lives meaningful and gives us the hope of glory in the next.

The First Reading prepares us for our Gospel Reading. Jesus tells the Parable of the Rich Fool to demonstrate the foolishness of striving for the material over the spiritual. His message is that temporal life is fleeting, and we cannot amass earthly treasures for our hoped-for heavenly future. The accumulation of works of love and mercy pleases God; they are credited toward eternal life and are recorded in the Lord's Books of Deeds that will be laid open at the Final Judgment.

People who only run after material goods and perishable earthly values will never be satisfied. Life becomes meaningful when it relates to God in prayer and worship and to others in the human family to whom we demonstrate God's love. Life has meaning then because we have God's forgiveness of our sins and the hope of eternal salvation through Christ Jesus. This is our petition in the opening prayer: "Forgive us our sins and restore us to life. Keep us safe in your love. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen."

The First Reading Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23 ~ The Folly of Life
1:2 Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity! [...] 2:21 Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and yet to another who has not labored over it, he must leave property. This also is vanity and a great misfortune. 22 For what profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun? 23 All his days sorrow, and grief is his occupation; even at night his mind is not at rest. This also is vanity.

The writer of the book of Ecclesiastes identifies himself as Qoheleth. It is not a proper name but a participle of the Hebrew verb qahal, meaning "to gather" or "to assemble," and suggests someone who speaks to an assembly in a loud voice. Therefore, English translators often render it as "the Preacher" or "the Teacher." The Greek title of the book reflects the meaning of the Hebrew word qoheleth, which is ekklesiastes or "someone who convokes an assembly" (ekklesia).

The first and last chapters of the book of Ecclesiastes begin and end with the same words: "Vanities of vanities (1:2 and 12:8). The inspired writer is not speaking of vanity in the sense of someone who has an exaggerated sense of their appearance or the worth of their accomplishments but in the sense of the perishable quality of everything that is a part of the temporal world. The word "vanities" sums up the book's central theme and is the inspired writer's assessment of the things of the material world and the futile fruits of most human endeavors. Some scholars believe the Hebrew root of the word translated as "vanity' means "vapor" or "air." Other scholars link the Hebrew word to another source that means "fleeting" or "evanescent," referring to something that cannot be grasped. However, both meanings convey the idea of something that is an illusion or an unreality with no consistency.

The passage in our reading states that life is sadly empty without God. The inspired writer lists examples of how impossible it is to attain happiness only by following the path of human experience and endeavors. The life endeavors that develop into worldly wisdom and material wealth are not lasting, and the result is that one's descendants or heirs inherit those riches for which they did not work: and yet to another who has not labored over it, he must leave property.

Those labors and the accumulation of wealth are expected to bring happiness, but such striving leads nowhere and only brings anxiety (2:22). The earthly toil that leads to prosperity and life experience that should yield wisdom is vanity because, in the end, there is nothing to show for the value of a person's earthly struggles and stored up wealth that cannot follow in death. Material wealth, worldly wisdom, and its illusion of prosperity are all in vain; it is work that is fleeting and empty without a real purpose or lasting reward.

Responsorial Psalm 90:3-5, 12-14, 17 ~ God's Eternity and Human Frailty
The response is, "If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts."

3 You turn man back to dust, saying, "Return, O children of men." 4 For a thousand years in your sight are as yesterday, now that it is past, or as a watch of the night. 5 You make an end of them in their sleep; the next morning they are like the changing grass, which at dawn springs up anew, but by evening wilts and fades.
Response:
12 Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart. 13 Return, O LORD [Yahweh]! How long" Have pity on your servants!
Response:
14 Fill us at daybreak with your kindness, that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days. 17 And may the gracious care of the LORD [Yahweh] our God be ours; prosper the work of our hands for us! Prosper the work of our hands!
Response:

Psalms 90-106 comprise the fourth part of the five books of the Psalms. This section begins with Psalm 90, entitled "The Prayer of Moses," and ends in Psalm 106, in which Moses appears again (106:16, 23, 32). It is the only psalm attributed to Moses in its superscription and refers to the creation of man from the dust of the earth (Gen 2:7; Ps 90:3).

The theme of the psalm is on the creation of man, formed by God from the dust of the earth (Gen 2:7), and to dust his physical body is doomed to return (Gen 3:19). Even if he were to live a thousand years (a number symbolizing a very long time), the length of man's life would be nothing compared to the eternity of God. St. Peter will quote verse 4 in 2 Peter 3:8-9 for Christians who are impatient for Christ's Second Coming. Man's life is fleeting like the grasses of the field that spring up and then wither and die (Ps 90:5).

In verses 12-14, the inspired writer tells us that only God can provide the wisdom men and women need to make sense of a life full of toil and suffering. Only God, in His mercy, gives meaning to life. The psalmist asks God for His loving kindness and the gladness to be gratefully satisfied with what He has given, even with the struggles and sufferings that are part of life (verses 13-14). There are no "bad days" for someone who loves God and has faith in Him. Each day is a gift because it is an opportunity to serve the Lord, who is merciful and pardons our failures, making life joyful in our relationship with Him (verse 14). The psalmist then asks the Lord to grant us His grace in guiding the works of our hands to produce good deeds that have lasting value (verse 17).

The Second Reading Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11 ~ Christ Gives Meaning to Life
1 If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory. 5 Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry. [...] 9 Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.

St. Paul tells the Christians of Colossus and us that, in the waters of Christian Baptism, we have died to self-interest and sin, and we have been raised to a new life in Christ Jesus. Therefore, our lives' focus must be on Christ, who promises us a share in His resurrected life of glory. However, the rejection of sin must be an ongoing process, resulting in living life in the Spirit, who transforms us into the image and likeness of Christ. By living the message of the Gospel that the risen, living Christ is the only source of salvation, Christians will be free from empty religious evaluations like circumcision, social status, ethnic ties, and other human conditions of the world. They have died to those worldly things so they can live for Christ (verse 5).

In verse 5, St. Paul lists five evil practices (the second list of five sins appears in verse 8, which is not in our reading). Idolatry is a form of greed because the purpose of worshipping false gods is to advance one's state materially, taking control over one's life and denying the One True God's will for one's life. In the Sacrament of Baptism, all believers in Christ submit their lives to God's will, are raised to a new life, and are equal heirs of Christ: 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all. Living in fellowship with Jesus is what makes life meaningful.

The Gospel of Luke 12:13-21 ~ A Warning against Temporal Labors and the Sin of Greed (The Parable of the Rich Fool)
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me." 14 He replied to him, "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?" 15 Then he said to the crowd, 'Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one's life does not consist of possessions." 16 Then he told them a parable. "There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. 17 He asked himself, 'What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?' 18 And he said, 'This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods 19, and I shall say to myself, "Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!" 20 But God said to him, 'You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?' 21 Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God."

A man seeks Jesus's intervention in a family dispute over inheritance. However, Jesus denies his request because His mission is concerned with the man's spiritual condition and not the just distribution of material assets. There were courts of law set up to deal with such issues. Instead, Jesus offered a teaching on the dangers of greed and a warning that material possessions do not define what is truly meaningful in life. The contrast in His instruction is between those like the rich man in the parable who only values wealth in the material sense with no thought to his eternal condition as opposed to the others who focus on pleasing God and the promise of an eternal reward. The parable relates to Jesus's earlier teaching on the importance of fearing God, who is the One who will deliver everyone's final judgment (Lk 12:4-5).

In Jesus's parable, the rich man's problem was that he did not love God above all else. He did not fear God's judgment, nor did he have any concern for his eternal destiny. Jesus taught that the essence of a person cannot be defined by his material goods but rather by the person's words and deeds. In the parable, God called the rich man "a fool" (verse 20) because, in his selfishness and greed, the man amassed a material abundance that was of no value to him when he died and faced God's divine judgment. If the man had wanted to please God, he would have used his abundance of material wealth to help the poor. His good deeds would have followed him into eternity, and his acts of mercy would have advanced the cause of his salvation.

This Sunday's readings teach us that temporal life is fleeting, and only our deeds of righteousness have lasting value. At the end of our lives, when we come before God to face divine judgment, He will open the Book of Deeds that contains a record of our generous works of compassion and mercy: and a record book was written before him of those who fear the LORD [Yahweh] and trust in his name. And they shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts [Yahweh Sabaoth], my own special possessions, on the day I take action. And I will have compassion on them, as a man has compassion on his son who serves him. Then you will again see the distinction between the just and the wicked; between him who serves God, and him who does not serve him (Mal 3:16b-18 NABRE; also see Ps 40:8; 56:8; Jer 17:1; Dan 7:10; Lk 10:20; Rev 20:12). Using one's wealth to advance the accumulation of good works pleases God and those works He credits toward our reward of eternal life. One's life will be judged upon the richness of those selfless acts of love and mercy in service to Christ (Mt 25:31-46; Rev 20:11-12), and those acts answer the question, "What makes life meaningful?"

Catechism References (* indicates Scripture is quoted or paraphrased in the citation):
Colossians 3:1-3 (CCC 655*); 3:1 (CCC 1002); 3:3 (CCC 665*, 1003, 1420, 2796); 3:4 (CCC 1003, 2772*); 3:5 (CCC 2618); 3:10 (CCC 2809)

Luke 12:13-21 (CCC 549*); 12:14 (CCC 549*)

Hope for a new Heaven and a new earth (CCC 661*, 1042*, 1043*, 1044*, 1045*, 1046*, 1047-1049, 1050*, 1821*)

The disorder of covetousness (CCC 2535, 2536*, 2537, 2538*, 2539-2540, 2547*, 2728*)