Covetousness

“But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:21).

Saint John the Baptist (Milena Pramatarova)

There is a sin prohibited in the Ten Commandments by two of the Commandments and that sin relates to covetousness.  The ninth commandment prohibits a person from coveting the goods of another person, and the tenth commandment prohibits a person from coveting the wife of another person.  Covetousness is one of those sins, that is largely misunderstood in modern times.  We do not often use this word in conversational language and therefore, we do not often think about it.  But that is not to say that this is not a serious and prevalent sin in our world.

I have only to think of social media and the major problem with it to understand how covetousness fits into the world in modern times…

After all, the danger of social media is that people compare their circumstances with the circumstances with another.  For example, someone posts something on social media showing how beautiful they are or how relaxed they are or what a great mother or father they are or how lovely their home is.  And others look at those posts and make comparisons between their lives.  They consider the life of the person who made the post and compare it to the situation in their own life.  Often this causes a person to feel terrible because they are unable to reconcile their own real lived experience with the images that are presented to them on social media.

And Christ warned of this thousands of years ago…

“The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:13-21).There is no peace that can be found in the soul of a covetous soul…

And the only way to avoid such a thing is to practice the virtue of poverty.  And the only way to practice that is to adopt an attitude where nothing really belongs to us.  We do not put a hold on things and treat those things as simply tools with which to live and not the ultimate goal of this life…

And I have been thinking of that in conserving the example of Saint Josemaria who lived a life where he refused to even claim his own room, which he would refer to as “the room that I use” rather than “my room”.  And in over forty years as a priest, he never complained about the things.

And today, as I consider the sin of covetousness, I consider the power of a prayer that could influence the way that view the things of this world to which I must never become attached…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.