Being Rich Is A Temporary Thing

From the Letter of James 

Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries. Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire. You have stored up treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on earth in luxury and pleasure;  you have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter. You have condemned; you have murdered the righteous one; he offers you no resistance.

Happy Sunday to you.  Let me begin by saying that I do not have anything against rich people.  As a matter of fact, being in America means that our poorest are richer than many other people in the world, so since I have a place to live, clothes on my back, and can actually choose what I am going to eat today, well, I am a rich person so what I am writing here today applies to me as well. 

Everything we have, every dollar in our bank account, every stick of furniture in our homes, every designer shirt or dress in our closets, the shoes on our feet, everything, has its source in God's love for us.  He gives us opportunities to earn the things we need to live.  Sometimes, He just gives them to us as part of the package we call the world.  But we own none of it. The land that people make payments to the bank for every month, do they really think that they own it?  They have the exclusive use of it but it will not follow them into the grave even if they are buried on it.  Have you ever seen an abandoned cemetery?  If not, google the term and you will be surprised at how many there are.  We own nothing.  In the words of Job:  "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD."  It is so sad that we sometimes forget this saying.

On YouTube, you can see videos of "urban explorers" finding and entering abandoned homes that have everything left in them that the person who resided there owned.  The home itself once was a source of pride and the things inside of it, they were all worked for and accumulated over a lifetime and now they are fodder for people look at on the internet. 

I know we need things to live and as I said Our Heavenly Father provides them to us as He sees fit.  But some of us go off of the deep end when it comes to ownership of things.  We make it our focus in life and forget that there are those around us with less and that they are our brothers and sisters because we have the same Father.   Some business owners refuse to pay a living wage.  I have read about a man in the area where I live who has been working at a very popular pancake house who has been working there for twenty years and still is only making minimum wage. As an aside, he travels an hour and a half via public transportation to get to this grease pit every day. This restaurant is very successful charges big for their pancakes, has multiple locations so I have removed it from my list of possible places to go. 

Look around you. How much of the stuff that you own will fit in the coffin with you?  Not much, and that which would fit would do you no good anyway.  It is okay to be rich as long as you do not lose focus as to who really owns what you have.  St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is coming up soon, had to restrained under his vow of obedience from giving away his only tunic in the winter time.  He believed that if there was someone less well off than he was, well, then the tunic was theirs.  Be generous to those less fortunate than you are. God knows how hard you have worked to get the things that you have and He will be pleased if you share what you can with those that need it.  God will never be outdone in generosity, never. 

One gift God gives us is time. Please, on this Sunday, use some of your time to pray for the poor souls in Purgatory. They need your prayers.  Pray especially for your relatives by name and for those that have no one to pray for them.  Consider the millions of faithful Protestants who find themselves in Purgatory.  They do not get prayed for by their loved ones because they do not believe in purgatory.  

Here is an idea, look at the death notices in your local paper. Pick one of the deceased at random and pray specifically him or her. If they are in purgatory and need your prayers they will be so very grateful, if not, well, then the prayers will help another deserving soul.  If you do not get the newspaper,  find your local funeral home's website and pray for one (or more) of the people listed there.   God will be so pleased that you have taken part of your day and sacrificed it for the Poor Souls.  

A Final idea: Pray The Prayer of St. Gertrude the Great for the poor souls.  Every time the prayer is devoutly recited, Jesus told her that one-thousand souls are released from Purgatory.   Here is this powerful prayer and wonderful gift from the Lord. 

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.

Read more at https://www.praymorenovenas.com/prayer-st-gertrude-great-souls-purgatory