It has often struck me that, the economy of our nation and the world being as precarious as it is, that being rich in what matters to God is more important than ever. With all the bad news out there – financial news, political news, news of epidemic diseases, war and terrorism, who among us hasn’t had the sinking feeling that this world’s riches are nothing at time but straw?
So you’d think that these times of uncertainty, people would be coming to Church, reconnecting with their God, and drawing strength from their faith, building up those riches that are from God. But you’d be wrong. All you have to do is look around and see that Mass attendance is nothing like it was in the past, that there are too many empty spaces in the pews.
In some ways it strikes me that we are quickly losing our faith, or even worse, that we as a society are becoming indifferent to faith, seeing it as irrelevant or ultimately meaningless. At a time in our history when we should be returning to God in droves, people instead are staying away in droves.
And it’s hard to live through uncertain times without faith. How can we ride the ups and downs of life with anything close to tranquility without the rock that is our faith? Instead we as a society seem content to look to the government to save us, while we continue to practice unprecedented greed. And to all of that, God warns us: we may just find ourselves wanting in what matters to God. If our lives were demanded of us this day, would we find ourselves rich or poor?