Last week my parish celebrated the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, the day before the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the reason being that it wasn't St. Francis' Day yet and that it was still within the Octave of Michaelmas. So now, since it's within the Octave of St. Francis (please, please leave off that the ranking of the feast doesn't get an Octave, we know that...) we are commemorating the simple friar from Assisi who kick-started the Order of Friars Minor (I never did figure out who where the Friars Major...).
Strangely enough, the regularly scheduled Gospel reading for the Mass of the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (St. Mark 10.17-31) is quite fitting for St. Francis. Our Lord just met up with the devout but rich man who was crestfallen that Jesus told him the only thing he was lacking for eternal life was to give up, well, everything.
Ouch.
Our Lord has a point. Money gives us a very false sense of security. It takes pretty much nothing for huge investments to disappear in a matter of seconds during a market correction or crash. Property can be wasted by war or natural disaster. Even our health is precarious. Nothing, absolutely nothing is certain, but when we have something, often we put our trust in that something, taking our eyes off God in the process. God knows, I'm as guilty of that as the next person!
The news of this level of detachment dismayed the disciples. They (as many now do) believed that material gain among the wealthy was a certain sign of God's favour. They were (are) not necessarily wrong, for God makes it rain on both the just and the unjust alike, but Our Lord was emphatic that laying up treasures here on earth, which could disappear in a flash, was unimportant. What was important was laying up treasure in heaven.
"What sort of quarterly statement do you get for that?" one may ask.
Really, there is no account for that. What we do in laying up treasure in heaven is developing and growing our character, transforming ourselves bit by bit more and more into the image of Christ, who is the image of the unseen God. God, the Infinite, the perfect, wants us to take our personalities, made in His image, and perfect them in Him by doing what He wills, that is the selfless giving of our very being to all those around us. If we can help someone stave off starvation, then we do it. If we can keep them from freezing, then we do it. If we can comfort someone wracked by grief, then we do it. Ignoring our own material gain, or bending what we have to the benefit of others, is something St. Francis did. He gave up his social position, his inheritance, his "certainty" and treasures on earth, to build up his fellow man and to lay up treasure in heaven, that is, to transform himself into the image of Christ, Himself the Image of the Father. Our Lord promises in doing so, even though the way may be rough, the returns will be mind-boggling. What did St. Francis gain? He may have been poor, but he had some of the best friends anyone could hope to have (St. Clare, the sisters and brothers, even a few Dominicans, wordy bunch that they were...), and finally a place among the saints to have life in God forever.
Sounds like a pretty good trade after all.
