One of the main occupations of our human life has to do with filling up what is empty. We equate happiness with an experience of fullness. Many different areas of our lives need filling: our stomachs, our schedules, the gas tank of our car, our bank accounts, our hearts, our minds, our hopes, etc. The word “vanity” could be a synonym for emptiness. The difference is that what is vain often seems to be worthwhile at one level – we experience some degree of satisfaction – but it leaves us empty. Eating will satisfy a hunger for food, but eating will not fill the other areas of my heart that experience emptiness. That’s the foolishness of the man who has stockpiled food in today’s Gospel. As important as it is to fill your stomach every day, a full stomach is not the same as a full life. Imagining that you don’t have to worry about tomorrow anymore because you have an unlimited supply of resources is an illusion. Tomorrow isn’t just twenty-four hours from now, the real tomorrow is eternity. Any pursuit that tries to manage tomorrow as though it were disconnected from eternity is vain – empty. Any reliance on the situations and things of this world is vain because they will not follow in the next.
Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
The rest that is appointed by God is a combination of self-restraint and remission of debt. This Jubilee is the celebration God wants us to experience. Herod the tetrarch represents the attempts of men to celebrate, but in a way that is completely foreign to God’s plan. Celebration is not meant to be a time of self-indulgence or of incurring debt. Celebration is meant to be a time to receive what we need from God and providence without frenetic anxious activity. To receive the release from all debts: forgiveness – that is the true joy of celebration.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola
We live in an age that promotes transparency and the sharing of information indiscriminately. Good or evil, with blatant disregard for the souls of those who might happen upon it, information and facts are being regurgitated and spewed out upon the face of the earth like some new form of pollution. The industry of sensationalism is creating a thick layer of toxic information waste on the surface of the planet that its poor inhabitants must wade through on a daily basis. Searching for the information we need increasingly resembles dumpster diving. The clouds that store our precious data also allow an endless torrent of acid “news” rain flooding our souls.