Generosity and Love, not Greed

   

  Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

31 July 2022 

 

First Reading: Ecc 1:2, 2:21-23

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17

Second Reading: Col 3:1-5, 9-11

Gospel: Lk 12:13-21

 

Reflection

By: Benj Santiago

 

"Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.” ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?'

Being poor is difficult. To be rich is also difficult. And we all know that the love of money is the root of all evil. It is also true that money cannot buy us happiness. But it is equally true that we need money to buy the things we need. So, there must be a balance in our pursuit of wealth. The Gospel reading clearly tells us that the accumulation of possessions or wealth must not be anchored on GREED! 

As a financial mentor, I was mentored by Bro. Bo Sanchez. And the basic guide I put into practice is the “Prosperity Formula” or the “Abundance Formula” that guides us to give; at least 10% of what we earn, back to God through our Tithes.  To give back to our Church or charities at least 10% of what the Lord blesses us with. That we strive to earn more so we can give more. In our team, the Truly Rich Makers Team, we collectively support the Annual Feast Conference as a MAJOR SPONSOR. It is our collective way of giving back to the ministries supported by Bro. Bo. We continue to encourage many families to accumulate wealth not for greed but to be able to be more generous in giving. For we believe that the ultimate purpose of accumulating wealth is to use it for LOVE!

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for enlightening us to guard against greed in our pursuit of accumulating wealth. We pray that all those who are blessed to have will be inspired to share to those who have not. This we pray in Jesus' Name, Amen.

Render What is Due

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time Oct 19
First reading                                        Isaiah 45:1,4-6
Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom he has taken by his right hand to subdue nations before him and strip the loins of kings, to force gateways before him that their gates be closed no more: ‘It is for the sake of my servant Jacob, of Israel my chosen one, that I have called you by your name, conferring a title though you do not know me. I am the Lord, unrivalled; there is no other God besides me. Though you do not know me, I arm you that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that, apart from me, all is nothing.’
Psalm                                                Psalm 95:1,3-5,7-10

Second reading                               1 Thessalonians 1:1-5

From Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, to the Church in Thessalonika which is in God the Father 
and the Lord Jesus Christ; wishing you grace and peace.
  
We always mention you in our prayers and thank God for you all, and constantly 
remember before God our Father how you have shown your faith in action, worked for love 
and persevered through hope, in our Lord Jesus Christ.
  
We know, brothers, that God loves you and that you have been chosen, because when 
we brought the Good News to you, it came to you not only as words, but as power and as 
the Holy Spirit and as utter conviction.

Gospel                                          Matthew 22:15-21

The Pharisees went away to work out between them how to trap Jesus in what he said. And they sent their disciples to him, together with the Herodians, to say, ‘Master, we know that you are an honest man and teach the way of God in an honest way, and that you are not afraid of anyone, because a man’s rank means nothing to you. Tell us your opinion, then. Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ But Jesus was aware of their malice and replied, ‘You hypocrites! Why do you set this trap for me? Let me see the money you pay the tax with.’ They handed him a denarius, and he said, ‘Whose head is this? Whose name?’ ‘Caesar’s’ they replied. He then said to them, ‘Very well, give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God.’

Reflection

By Beth Eguia

Pedro received two ten peso coins from his mother, one for himself and one to place in the offering at church. As they were walking down the sidewalk to church, he accidentally dropped one, and it rolled into a nearby drain. He peered down through the grates of the drain at the shiny coin on the bottom. When he realized he couldn't retrieve it, he said, “Well, God, there goes your ten pesos.”

Too often, we neglect to give what is due to God. Just like Pedro, we think of ourselves first before God. We only give our spare time, talent and treasures to Him. During offerings at church or donations to charitable institutions and typhoon victims, we only give little. Most of our wealth we spend on unnecessary things like buying cigarettes, liquors, expensive shoes, clothes, toys or even use to bet in casinos or lotto. We spend our time more on work, that we even neglect going to church on Sundays or even spend quality time with our loved ones. We use our talents just to make money, retire and die. We never think it was given by God for us to use wisely, to benefit others and not ourselves. And God gave other people talents to benefit us too.

The main reflection of the Gospel for today is to render what is rightfully due, first to God, to others, to our family, to our society. Give to Caesar what is due to him means, we also need to pay our tax obligations rightfully. We could argue with the fact that there are corrupt government officials who are using and spending people’s money for their personal use and pleasures. The main point is, as citizens of this country we have the obligation to do what is right, to share and assist for our country’s prosperity.

Spend quality time with your family. Have dinner together, share jokes, fun and laughter, discuss important family matters, motivate one another to be at their best, support each other through good and bad times. These are priceless moments we can enjoy only if we decide to put our time and heart on them.

God is an awesome God. To render what is due to Him does not only commensurate with the time spend on going to Mass every Sundays, or saying our prayers. To render what is due to Him is to dedicate our whole self, our time, talents and treasures for His greater glory. Every moment we spend time with our family, every moment we share our time with the elders and less fortunate, every time we pay taxes rightfully, we are rendering what is due to God.

Prayer

Holy and precious God, we thank You for reminding us to render what is due to You and to others. Most of the times we are at fault. We forget that this life You gave us is not only for our own selves nor for our own use. But rather to use every moment of our time, talent and treasure for others and for Your great glory. Through the intercession of Mama Mary, may we always do and follow Your will and render what is rightfully Yours. Amen.

Kababaang-loob

First Reading: Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29

My son, perform your tasks in meekness; then you will be loved by those whom God accepts. The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself; so you will find favor in the sight of the Lord. For great is the might of the Lord; he is glorified by the humble. The affliction of the proud has no healing, for a plant of wickedness has taken root in him. The mind of the intelligent man will ponder a parable, and an attentive ear is the wise man's desire.

Psalm: Psalm 68:4-7, 10-11

Second Reading: Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers entreat that no further messages be spoken to them. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.

Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14

One sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, "When you are invited by anyone to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; and he who invited you both will come and say to you, `Give place to this man,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, `Friend, go up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."

Reflection
By Beth Eguia

Ang tema ng mga pagbasa sa linggong ito ay napapanahon kung ating iuugnay sa mga kaganapan sa ating bansa. Ang pinaka-kontrobersyal na dito ay ang “pork barrel”. Ating tinutuligsa ang paggamit sa pondo ng bayan para sa sariling kapakanan.  Ang malaking porsyento ng ating kinikita buwan buwan na inilalaan sa pagbayad ng buwis ay naibubulsa lamang ng ilan sa ating mga hinalalal na tagapangasiwa  ng ating pamahalaan. Masakit isipin na ang bilyun-bilyong pera ay di nagagamit sa tama tulad ng pagsasaayos ng mga imprastraktura, mga eskwelahan o pagpapaaral sa mga kapus-palad nating mga kapatid.

Ang tamang paglilingkod ay di naghahangad ng kapalit. Ang isang tao ay di dapat tumatakbo sa pulitika upang makalakap ng pera para sa pansariling kapakanan. Ang isang ulirang mangagawa ay nagtratrabaho ng walong oras at iginigugol ang bawat minuto sa pagtapos ng kanyang mga gawain at hindi sa pakikipag tsismisan o pagtitinda ng kanyang mga “branded bags at perfumes” sa oras ng trabaho. Ang isang ulirang estudyante naman ay nag-aaral nang mabuti, nagpupuyat  araw-araw para maging handa sa lahat ng pagsusulit at di gumagamit ng kodigo para makamit ang unong marka.

Bilang isang anak, isang magulang, isang opisyal sa gobyerno o ordinaryong manggagawa, tayo ay pinapa-alalahanan ng Diyos na maging mapagkumbaba sa pagtupad ng ating mga tungkulin. Hindi tayo kailangang mapansin ng iba habang ginagawa natin ito bagkus matahimik at masayang  gumagawa at iniaalay sa Diyos ang anumang papuri na ating natatanggap.

Si Jesus ang pinakamagandang halimbawa na nagpamalas ng pagpapakumbaba. Kahit Siya ang Anak ng Diyos, hindi Niya ginamit ito sa pakikipaghalubilo sa mga tao mahirap man o mayaman. Siya ay naglingkod sa pamamagitan ng pagpapagaling sa mga maysakit, pagpapakain sa mga nagugutom at hindi naghangad ng kapalit.

Prayer

PANGINOON, pinupuri at pinaparangalan Ka namin. Salamat po sa mga pagbasa sa araw na ito. Patuloy Mo kaming gabayan at paalalahan na maglingkod ng may pagpapakumbaba. Nawa ay di kami magpadala sa tukso na maghangad ng kapalit sa bawat paggawa ng aming tungkulin.  Amen.

On Being Greedy

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

August 4, 2013

"Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions"

First Reading: Ecclesiastes 1:2,2:21-23

Vanity of vanities, Qoheleth says. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity!

  For so it is that a man who has laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 89:3-6,12-14,17

Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-5,9-11

Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed – and he is your life – you too will be revealed in all your glory with him.

  That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; and never tell each other lies. You have stripped off your old behaviour with your old self, and you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its creator; and in that image there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised or the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and free man. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.

Gospel: Luke 12:13-21

A man in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.’ ‘My friend,’ he replied, ‘who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?’ Then he said to them, ‘Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.’

  Then he told them a parable: ‘There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, “What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time.” But God said to him, “Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?.” So it is when a man stores up treasure for himself in place of making himself rich in the sight of God.’

Reflection

By Mark Rodney Vertido

Just this week, the Philippine media released the news on the unbalanced human development index (HDI) in the country. Mindanao provinces remain the undeveloped parts of the country. What happened to the distribution of wealth in the country? It is said that majority of the wealth goes to a number of families only and the remaining is distributed to the other 90 million people in our country.

What do we mean by HDI? HDI is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income indices used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. It is good that these reports are published and they show that there are indeed gaps in order to balance life in our country. We always complain that such results are the effect of the government’s inefficiency and we would point out corruption as the source of the problem.

Corruption is rampant in the country that is why even in the recent registration for barangay elections, people suddenly rushed to register. Observers say that this is again another tactic used by corrupt local government officials to control the system and the budget for projects. Is this the picture that “Juan and Juana de la Cruz” want of their country? Is corruption embedded in the veins of Filipinos already? Why are Juans and Juanas being driven by money?

They would say that our cultural and historical background have resulted to this greedy attitude of Filipinos. Being under Spanish rule for more than 333 years and under the American rule for more than 40 years, this has shaped our politics and attitudes towards governing. We do not want to be oppressed again but we have failed to govern our country according to the standards of Christian morality where our very own constitution was based.

So this Sunday, Jesus points out clearly to focus our hearts to the One who is more important than anyone or anything. Are we not supposed to love God first? A very popular Gospel verse tells, “Seek ye first the kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you,” (cf. Mt 6:33).

I was taught by my parents to become thrifty in my money so that when time comes that I need it, I can have something to use from my very own pocket. I know that this is also being practiced by many. In the Gospel, Jesus shows a parable on the rich man who stored up his treasures for his benefit. But Jesus says that these treasures will be taken away. Being thrifty to save money is not bad at all, it becomes a sin when these treasures are being kept for the sake of oneself. That is greed!

All things have come from Divine Providence. I am sure God wants us to fully attain happiness by sharing these riches to people who are in need. With the results of the HDI, it only shows that greed exists in our society. What will we gain of being greedy and not being contented with what we have?

But I would like to take note that the HDI measures human development through indicators which are biased to the financial ability of people to acquire daily needs and attain education so that life expectancy is longer. It is still all about money. This would be related to another study on the world’s happiest nations wherein the measurement is based on economic spending and financial status of citizen. It reports that if a country is economically rich, then people are happier. I know one word that captures everything that I have written, that is, CONSUMERISM. The world is governed by consumerist-materialist who views the world as a statistic of money and spending.

“Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions,” Jesus warns us. I believe that life is not all about material possessions for all of these will pass. When people can smile amidst storms in life and can stand after every storm to hope for a better future - these we can consider as riches. God wants us to attain eternal happiness with Him as such let us focus our hearts to the heavenly treasure rather than material riches. For everything will come to us if we focus first on God himself.

Prayer

Father, help us to focus more on heavenly riches. Help us to love more, to share more and to spend more time in Your presence! In Jesus' name. Amen.

Tool or Master?

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
19 September 2010


Come, let us rejoice in the Lord: let us acclaim God our salvation, alleluia.

First reading Amos 8:4-7
Listen to this, you who trample on the needy
and try to suppress the poor people of the country,
you who say, ‘When will New Moon be over
so that we can sell our corn,
and sabbath, so that we can market our wheat?
Then by lowering the bushel, raising the shekel,
by swindling and tampering with the scales,
we can buy up the poor for money,
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and get a price even for the sweepings of the wheat.’
The Lord swears it by the pride of Jacob,
‘Never will I forget a single thing you have done.’

Psalm: Psalm 112:1-2,4-8

Second reading 1 Timothy 2:1-8
My advice is that, first of all, there should be prayers offered for everyone – petitions, intercessions and thanksgiving – and especially for kings and others in authority, so that we may be able to live religious and reverent lives in peace and quiet. To do this is right, and will please God our saviour: he wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth. For there is only one God, and there is only one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus, who sacrificed himself as a ransom for them all. He is the evidence of this, sent at the appointed time, and I have been named a herald and apostle of it and – I am telling the truth and no lie – a teacher of the faith and the truth to the pagans.
In every place, then, I want the men to lift their hands up reverently in prayer, with no anger or argument

Gospel Luke 16:1-13
Jesus said to his disciples, ‘There was a rich man and he had a steward denounced to him for being wasteful with his property. He called for the man and said, “What is this I hear about you? Draw me up an account of your stewardship because you are not to be my steward any longer.” Then the steward said to himself, “Now that my master is taking the stewardship from me, what am I to do? Dig? I am not strong enough. Go begging? I should be too ashamed. Ah, I know what I will do to make sure that when I am dismissed from office there will be some to welcome me into their homes.”
Then he called his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, “How much do you owe my master?” “One hundred measures of oil” was the reply. The steward said, “Here, take your bond; sit down straight away and write fifty.” To another he said, “And you, sir, how much do you owe?” “One hundred measures of wheat” was the reply. The steward said, “Here, take your bond and write eighty.”
‘The master praised the dishonest steward for his astuteness. For the children of this world are more astute in dealing with their own kind than are the children of light.
‘And so I tell you this: use money, tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into the tents of eternity. The man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great; the man who is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in great. If then you cannot be trusted with money, that tainted thing, who will trust you with genuine riches? And if you cannot be trusted with what is not yours, who will give you what is your very own?
‘No servant can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.’

Reflection
By Pam Manzano

Money was tight for John Wesley. When he began his ministry in the 1700s, he had to budget to survive. After making calculations, he determined he would need about £40 (equivalent to roughly Php 2,700) to survive. Because there was little inflation during that time, John stayed on that yearly budget for the rest of his life. When he first made that decision, his annual income was about £44 enabling him to give away £4 that very first year.

When he became a famous minister and after he had written many books, his income often exceeded £2,000 per annum. But John still held on his budget and lived on £40. All the rest of the money was given to those who are neglected and poor or the charities who would help him tell others about God’s love.

John Wesley who started the Methodist Church decided at an early age that money would be his servant, not his master.

Money is a tool. It is a great resource when put to right use but is evil when we allow it to corrupt our minds. As 1 Timothy 6:10 aptly shares that the love of money is the root of all evil, we should not fail in letting money be a way for the evil to let us do things that will separate us from God’s love.

Possessions are a responsibility. What we have at the moment are things lent to us by the Great Provider. Their use is a test of our character, our values as well as our trust in the Lord. The Gospel tells us that he who can be trusted with little can also be trusted with a lot, and whoever is dishonest with a little is dishonest with a lot (Lk 16:10).

What we do with every little thing we have is all counted. And this little thing indicates how faithful we are when it comes with great things. If we prove to be not trustworthy with just the little things, how will God commission us to take responsibility for the greater things?

This week’s Gospel is another reminder for us that we need to be responsible and mature Christians when it comes to handling our possessions and knowing our limitations. Let us not forget that the worldly riches are tools sent by God to aid us in the great commission He bestowed upon us.

As the parable of the wily manager concluded: we cannot serve both God and worldly riches.

Lord, Great Provider, grant us wisdom and courage to not be tempted by the things this world could offer. Help us fix our eyes on You Lord that we may receive the true riches only You could give. This we all pray in Jesus’ mighty name, AMEN.

Next on God-speak
Eternal Consolation

Be Greedy To Bless Others

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 August 2010


We are God’s people, the sheep of his flock: come, let us worship him, alleluia.

First reading Ecclesiastes 1:2,2:21-23
Vanity of vanities, Qoheleth says. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity!
For so it is that a man who has laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.
Psalm or canticle: Psalm 89:3-6,12-14,17

Second reading Colossians 3:1-5,9-11
Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed – and he is your life – you too will be revealed in all your glory with him.
That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; and never tell each other lies. You have stripped off your old behaviour with your old self, and you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its creator; and in that image there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised or the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and free man. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.

Gospel Luke 12:13-21
A man in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.’ ‘My friend,’ he replied, ‘who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?’ Then he said to them, ‘Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.’
Then he told them a parable: ‘There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, “What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time.” But God said to him, “Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?.” So it is when a man stores up treasure for himself in place of making himself rich in the sight of God.’

Reflection
By Anabelle Payod-Balla

I remember one of the stories of Bo Sanchez. There was a time when he felt so helpless and frustrated when he was not able to help financially those people who are in great need. He wanted to help and bless more people and he realized that he can’t do this well if he has no means, no money. And so, he was driven to become a millionaire in order to help more. And he did become a millionaire and is now funding several charities and housing for homeless. He made use of money in order to bless others, therefore storing riches in heaven.

The readings for this Sunday talk about freeing ourselves from the chain of earthly things and to stop piling riches for ourselves but instead, focus on storing riches in heaven. Some of us may have taken this message literally. Those who wanted to remain poor as they see money as evil, as an earthly thing. But some of us, like Brother Bo Sanchez, went beyond the words and found a way to use these earthly things in order to store more riches in heaven. The key is how we use and share what we have, our riches, in order to improve life and lead others to God.

One time, one of my mentors and I were sharing about how we are helping our extended family. And she said something that really struck me and inspired me to continue sharing what we have with others. She said, "It is better to be in the position of being the 'giver' than being the 'receiver'." I fully agreed with the statement. There is so much joy in giving than receiving. Plus, giving with a cheerful heart receives heavenly rewards and these heavenly rewards are the riches we are storing in heaven.

Father, we thank You for everything that we have today. Help us to use them for Your glory. And please continue to shower us with Your abundant blessings so we may be able to help more. Amen.

Go and be rich so you can help those in need while saving souls in the process!

Next on God-speak
Caught In The Act Of Faith