Saint Matthew's Church A Roman Catholic Community

Saint Matthew's Church
A Roman Catholic Community

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Weekend Mass Schedule
Saturday Vigil at 5:00 PM
Sunday at 8:30 and 10:30 AM
Full Schedule of Services
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Pastor's Weekly Message

The Gospel for this Sunday, the 28th Sunday in ordinary time, is very difficult for many of us who live in the "first world" to hear. We in the western developed world consume most of the world's resources while 70% of the world lives in need. So when the rich man approaches Jesus in our Gospel and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life Jesus answers that he should keep the commandments. So far so good. But when the man says that he has done that from his youth Jesus tells him: You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, then come, follow me. We are told that the man's face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. The good news here for all of us who have many possessions is that Jesus does not condemn us but is only saddened by the fact that our possessions will make it that much harder for us to enter the kingdom of God.

An article by David Loy, a Buddhist and a professor, has given me insight into how hard it is for us in the west to hear the message of Jesus. I offer his opening summary of the article entitled "The religion of the Market" (you can find his entire article at http://www.zen-occidental.net/articles1/loy8.html) for your reflection. Loy writes:

Religion is notoriously difficult to define. If, however, we understand religion as what most fundamentally grounds us by teaching us what the world is, and what our role in the world is, two facts become obvious: traditional religions are fulfilling this function less and less; and that is because this function is being supplanted -- or overwhelmed -- by other belief-systems and value-systems. Today, the most powerful alternative explanation of the world is science, and the most attractive value-system has become consumerism. Their academic offspring is economics, the most influential of the "social sciences". In response, this paper will argue that our present economic system should also be understood as our religion, because it has come to fulfill a religious function for us. The discipline of economics is less a science than the theology of that religion, and its god, the Market, has become a vicious circle of ever-increasing production and consumption by pretending to offer a secular salvation...the Market is becoming the first truly world religion, binding all corners of the globe more and more tightly into a world-view and set of values whose religious role we overlook only because we insist on seeing them as "secular".

Is Loy's analysis of our times about what Jesus warned the man? Are we now like a camel (trying) to pass through the eye of a needle? Has economics and the consumer mentality taken over the world as a religion, that which most fundamentally grounds how we see the world? If so, the good news of this Sunday's Gospel is what Jesus tells his disciples when they like we are shocked by this story and its implications, that it is impossible for us to inherit eternal life because we have too many possessions: For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.

Fr. Chris

Seasonal Messages

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Registration is now open for the 2018/2019 Generations of Faith sessions. Please see the Generations of Faith page for more information. If you are interested in registering for a specific sacrament, please see the Sacraments page for more information.