Mammon

“You cannot serve God and mammon.’” (Luke 16:15).

Vision of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Santi di Tito)

Mammon is an old-fashioned sort of word.  I recently read it int eh Gospel and started to think about what it really meant.  The word mammon means greed or the hunger for material wealth.

“Jesus said to his disciples, ‘No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.’” (Luke 16:9-15).

In that passage, Christ does not say you cannot have God and have mammon, He says you cannot possess both of these things.  And that is what I have been thinking about today.  You see,  material possession possess us and instead of serving our purposes we can become enslaved to them and possessed by them.  This is what mammon is really referring to.  I can be very rich and have many possessions, but not have mammon.  This is because I can be generous of heart and not enamoured by the things of this world.  While I might enjoy having one thing or another, those things will not be the focus of my life and I will be able to remain detached from them.  And this means that I will never make the wrong choice in order to satisfy the possession of such things…

Saint Thomas Aquinas once experienced a vision of Christ Crucified.  The Crucified Christ spoke to him and said, “You have spoken well of me, Thomas, what should be your reward?”  The Saint replied, “Nil nisi te, Domine.”, which means “Nothing but you, O Lord.”

And I have been thinking of that today.  You see, that is what true detachment is.  It is understanding that though God can provide everything to me and I can ask Him for all things, it is the prayers crying out for God Himself that are the prayers that I should be praying.  God is the centre of my life and all things that lead me to God are welcome to me.  And all things that lead me away from God are also far from me.

And I have been thinking of that today.  For it seems that this temptation to mammon is a true temptation and is a terrible thing.  For it distorts my whole life.  And instead of fixing God firmly at the centre of my life, I move Him to one side so that I can focus on all the things that really do not matter to me and will not matter to me in the face of eternity.

And the only way to ensure that I am serving only one master – God – is to pray for the Grace to remain fixed upon Him.  And in a world where there are a million distractions, such a Grace is more precious than anything.  Much more precious than anything at all…

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