By Tom Thomas.
“I have to give up the right to own property.” Attending a workshop on discernment conducted by a Jesuit-run spirituality centre located on the outskirts of my city a few months ago, there were participants with me on the verge of making their final religious vows. The statement by this religious brother made me realize firsthand the many sacrifices a religious has to make to follow Him completely. As a layperson, I have to work to acquire the material resources needed to sustain my family. This is my vocation. But I also have to ensure that, in this process, I do not stray on the path of committing a vice.
I found it, therefore, of immense benefit that the Holy Father continued teaching in the General Audience of 24 January 2024 on the vices , this time focusing on “avarice, that form of attachment to money that keeps man from generosity.”
If is not a sin that affects only people with large assets but rather a transversal vice, which often has nothing to do with the bank balance. It is a sickness of the heart, not of the wallet.
The desert fathers’ analysis of this evil showed how avarice could even take hold of monks, who, after renouncing enormous inheritances, in the solitude of their cell clung to objects of little value: they would not lend them, they did not share them and were even less willing to give them away. An attachment to little things, which takes away freedom. Those objects became for them a sort of fetish from which they could not detach themselves. A sort of regression to the state of children who clutch their toy repeating, “It’s mine! It’s mine!”. In this claim there lurks a disordered relationship with reality, which can result in forms of compulsive hoarding and pathological accumulation.”
“What do you understand by the word – Avarice?” I asked my children while driving them to school. They were unable to explain exactly what the word meant. This small study made me wonder if this term for the vice Avarice first coined by Evagrius is no longer part of modern-day lexicon of the youth. There, is no doubt that all are familiar with the concept of avarice though, the modern day advertising keeps feeding us with subliminal and direct messages, “More, more, we need more of this and that .” And so, we are on the mad rat race of life unable to get off the ever-running treadmill of consumerism.
The Catholic Encyclopaedia says “Avarice (from Latin avarus, “greedy”; “to crave”) is the inordinate love for riches. Its special malice, broadly speaking, lies in that it makes the getting and keeping of money, possessions, and the like, a purpose in itself to live for. It does not see that these things are valuable only as instruments for the conduct of a rational and harmonious life, due regard being paid of course to the special social condition in which one is placed. It is called a capital vice because it has as its object that for the gaining or holding of which many other sins are committed. It is more to be dreaded in that it often cloaks itself as a virtue, or insinuates itself under the pretext of making a decent provision for the future. In so far as avarice is an incentive to injustice in acquiring and retaining of wealth, it is frequently a grievous sin. In itself, however, and in so far as it implies simply an excessive desire of, or pleasure in, riches, it is commonly not a mortal sin.”
At these times, we must emulate what the desert monks did to bring back their focus. As the Holy Father mentions, “To heal from this sickness, the monks proposed a drastic, though highly effective method: meditation on death. However much a person accumulates goods in this world, of one thing we can be absolutely sure: they will not enter the coffin with us. We cannot take property with us! Here, the senselessness of this vice is revealed. The bond of possession we create with objects is only apparent, because we are not the masters of the world: this earth that we love is in truth not ours, and we move about it like strangers and pilgrims (cf. Lev 25:23).”
Yes, we all have to go someday, that is the only reality in life. Will we be able to take even one material possession with us when we depart this earth, even if we are the greatest or most powerful person on earth? This realization struck Alexander the Great who famously made three last wishes and explained them to his Generals to be carried out. I would not like to repeat them, as it is freely available on the internet, but just mention his last purported words on why he wished his hands to be placed empty-handed outside his coffin. “I want my hands to swing in the wind, so that people understand that we come to this world empty-handed and we leave this world empty-handed.”
The Catholic Church recommends moderate prosperity—being neither too rich or too poor (Docat 164). The examples of the faithful in the Old Testament who earmarked a portion of their blessings for the Lord (tithing) help us give something back to the Lord, what He has blessed us with. It is a way of showing our gratitude to the Lord.
The Holy Father cautions us about what happens when we lose the right balance in the acquisition of material goods: “We, brothers and sisters, may be the masters of the goods we possess, but often the opposite happens: they eventually take possession of us. Some rich men are no longer free; they no longer even have the time to rest; they have to look over their shoulders because the accumulation of goods also demands their safekeeping. They are always anxious because a patrimony is built with a great deal of sweat but can disappear in a moment. They forget the Gospel preaching, which does not claim that riches in themselves are a sin, but they are certainly a liability. God is not poor: He is the Lord of everything, but, as Saint Paul writes, “Though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor so that by His poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).”
In ending this quote seems to aptly summarise the learnings, “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
― Socrates
excellent reflection-thank you!