Dominica II post Pentecosten

PRESENTATION: Christ Calls us to Simplicity

Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition Chapter 3

But if any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

During His Public Ministry, Our Lord said of Himself, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Our Lord was not a poor man, he was a carpenter, a tradesman,

he was able to provide a good life for his Blessed Mother after the death of St. Joseph,

he owned his own home in Capernaum, the same one in which the paralytic was lowered through the roof.

But when he entered his Public Ministry, he gave all of that up. He didn’t return from time to time to his old life in Nazareth to sure up his funds, he relied rather on the generosity of others to provide for him and for his apostles.

When he sent the 70 disciples out on their first missionary journey, He instructed them to carry no purse, no bag, and no sandals, and again to rely only upon the generosity of those they met in their travels.

Many of the saints followed Our Lord’s teaching and example, and gave up everything to follow him.

But what about all of us gathered here?

The Church, over the centuries, has recognized that some are called to live a life of radical poverty in order to serve the Lord, but that is a particular call, and not expected of everyone.

Nevertheless, even if we are not called to give up everything we have, and everything we own, we are still called to what is known as ‘Evangelical Simplicity’.

Such simplicity not only assists us in our own spiritual lives (a topic we will return to in a moment), but as St. John tells us in his epistle, it also allows us to give our surplus the poor.

St. Basil the Great puts it rather more bluntly:

“When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.”

ILLUSTRATION: A Wise Old Priest Shows the Way

We might be wondering at this point, what does this Evangelical Simplicity look like? Are we supposed to be wearing rags, and eating boiled potatoes every day? Of course not!

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, when he was rector of the American Seminary in Rome, gave a series of talks to the seminarians which were collected in the book Priests for the Third Millennium. One of those talks focused on this topic of simplicity, and he gave a rather striking example.

As a young priest he was travelling on one occasion, and was staying the night at a local rectory.

As it so happened in the evening he happened to pass by the pastor’s room, the door was open, and he was able to see into the pastor’s closet.

To his astonishment it was nearly empty. All he saw was a handful of shirts, and two pairs of pants.

Later in the evening he questioned the pastor where all of his belongings were, and why his closet was so empty.

The pastor replied, “If I go down to your room, what would I find? Perhaps a handful of shirts, one or two pairs of pants? What’s so different?”

The young Fr. Dolan replied, “Yes, but I’m only passing through.”

The wise old pastor responded, “So am I.”

This old priest knew something very important, we are only travelers in this world, and like any good traveler we should pack light so we are not weighed down on our journey.

The pastor had what he needed, but only what he needed, he didn’t have anything that was excess or superfluous.

PERSONAL IMPLICATION: Don’t Let Your Goods Become Gods

The goods of this world are not evil in themselves, in fact we call them “goods” after all.

The danger comes when we begin to accumulate to many of them.

As we have already seen, all of those unused items in our closets and basements and storage units, could likely well be put to use by the poor, those who can’t afford them in the first place,

and if we accumulate too much, it begins to act like a weight on our backs, hampering our ability to serve the Lord freely,

just look to the example in our Gospel, those who were first invited to the feast refused to attend because they were more focused on their material goods.

the more we accumulate, the more we will desire more and better things,

the more we accumulate, the more we begin to fear losing what we have.

If we truly wish to live a life of simplicity, then we must examine ourselves well.

Do my possessions rule my life, weigh me down in any way?

Do I have too much already, things that could benefit the poor more than me?

Is my focus on storing up material goods, or spiritual goods?

In our culture, which is so focused on material comforts, we must be signs of contradiction, pointing to higher realities and greater treasures.

There is nothing wrong with providing for our families, and enjoying a nice holiday, and having some comforts, but it is all too easy for our goods to become gods.

When we receive Our Lord once again today in Holy Communion, let us ask for the grace of simplicity, that we might provide for impoverished brothers and sisters, and store up heavenly treasure for ourselves, not an earthly one.