Word to the Wise
Friday, August 7, 2009 - Friday in the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
[Deuteronomy 4:33-40 and Matthew 1624-28]What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
The constant stories in the media about colossal "bonuses" and other "pay outs" to various individuals in the banking and automotive and other industries at the moment when these huge entities have gone bankrupt and wiped out the savings of many simply boggle the mind! The pious claim that it is all very legal will sound very interesting on the day of judgment! In addition to this have been the stories of Madoff and others who have robbed thousands through giant "ponzi" schemes. One is left almost speechless at the sheer audacity and GREED of these persons. The words of Jesus quoted above should alert us all, and not just the "honest" or dishonest beneficiaries of financial malpractice, that not one cent or one square inch of real estate or one ounce of oil will be worth one's life or one's soul. Many of those who have been the beneficiaries of some of these "bonuses" would consider themselves to be good people and faithful to God and country. They are blind to two things: the plight of those who suffer because of the collapse caused by their unethical financial malpractice, and to the moral collapse caused by "compartmentalizing" faith into one cubbyhole in life and behavior to another. The result is the disappearance of ethics in any area of life. What concerns me the most is that so many simply await a financial upturn so that America can go back to its merry financial ways! The establishment of new "safeguards" will prove a challenge to unethical imaginations, but in the long run there will be plenty who will try to manipulate the "system" for their own obscene benefit. All of this sounds even to me, the writer, like one more tiresome editorial except for the corrosive "culture" that has arisen in our country. Our Church is not completely immune to this. Which "profit" do we want to make? How much does anyone really need to have a decent life? I pray that the Lord will find a way to exorcise the demon of greed from our midst and lead us to a moral level that will ensure a decent standard of living not just for our own country but for this planet which is being consumed by that demon! AMEN
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