18th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

This Sunday's Gospel (Luke 12:13-21) tells the parable of the Rich Fool, who stores up his crops and goods in barns, never thinking that he can't take them into eternity with him. “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?”

In a General Audience on October 20, 2004, St. (Pope) John Paul II spoke about covetousness and wealth:

The Parable of the Rich Fool by Rembrandt (1627)

“In his riches, man lacks wisdom: he is like the beasts that are destroyed” (Psalm 49[48]: 13). In other words, untold wealth is not an advantage, far from it! It is better to be poor and to be one with God.... A profound blindness takes hold of man if he deludes himself that by striving to accumulate material goods he can avoid death. Not for nothing does the Psalmist speak of an almost animal-like “lack of understanding.”

...The rich man, clinging to his immense fortune, is convinced that he will succeed in overcoming death, just as with money he had lorded it over everything and everyone. But however vast a sum he is prepared to offer, he cannot escape his ultimate destiny. Indeed, like all other men and women, rich and poor, wise and foolish alike, he is doomed to end in the grave, as happens likewise to the powerful, and he will have to leave behind on earth that gold so dear to him and those material possessions he so idolized.

26th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

In the Gospel for today, Jesus tells the parable of the rich man "dressed in purple and fine linen," and Lazarus, the beggar "covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table." The beggar dies and is carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom, while the rich man is in the torments of hell. At Vigils this morning, we have a reading from St. John Chrysostom (c. 349 – 407), Archbishop of Constantinople, who preached eloquently against the abuse of wealth:

It is worthwhile enquiring why the rich man saw Lazarus in Abraham’s arms, and not in the company of some other righteous person. The reason is that Abraham was hospitable, and so the sight of Lazarus with Abraham was meant to reproach the rich man for his own inhospitality. Abraham used to pursue even passers-by and drag them into his home, whereas the rich man disregarded someone lying in his own doorway. Although he had within his grasp so great a treasure, such an opportunity to win salvation, he ignored the poor man day after day....

And this is true of you also. If you show much eagerness in welcoming some famous and distinguished person you do nothing remarkable; often the high rank of a guest compiles even reluctant host to show every sign of courtesy. But we do something truly great and admirable when we given a most courteous welcome to all, even the outcasts of society or people of humble condition.... And so Abraham also, knowing this, did not ask who travellers were or where they came from, as we do today, but simply welcomed them all. Anyone wishing to show kindness should not inquire into other people’s lives, but has only to alleviate their poverty and supply their needs, as Christ commanded when he said: Imitate your Father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on good and bad alike, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

Lazarus at the Rich Man's door, illumination from the Codex Aureus of Echternach (11th c.)