Fr. Mike's Gospel Reflection for - Sunday, August 3, 2025

I was very blessed to have had a great career. It was both fulfilling and rewarding. It also gave me an opportunity to put together a solid retirement plan. My wife and I thought that our retirement would involve spending summers at her family vacation home in Michigan. In the winters we hoped to live near our son to be near the grandkids we were hoping to have. We would also travel to places that we had always wanted to visit. Oh, and I was going to teach college and become a deacon. It was a great plan until God said, “you fool, today your wife’s life will be demanded.” It was then that I realized that our earthly happiness was not a very worthwhile goal.

The writer of Ecclesiastes is very direct when he says, “All things are vanity!” There are two key words – “things” meaning material possessions and “vanity” meaning pride. Everything that we accumulate on this earth feeds our pride. We take joy in our new car, our new television, our new phone. We focus on the here and now. Living for today seems important to us. Yet, as the Psalmist writes, “a thousand years in God’s sight are as yesterday…” Our entire existence is merely a fleeting moment in God’s eyes. We’re very proud of what we accomplish, but, in the grand scheme of eternity, it doesn’t amount to much.

St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that one essential part of becoming rich in what matters to God is to root out the desires that lead us astray from God, those parts of us that he calls “earthly.” That’s why Paul tells us to “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.”

Of course, simply having money and nice things is not at all bad or evil. The problem arises if we become consumed by the goal of getting and retaining material possessions and when the pursuit of that goal disrupts our relationships with God, or at home, or with others. When we place God first, and love our neighbors as ourselves, we soon begin to experience a lasting happiness that does not originate from our fleeting, earthly, material possessions, but from God, whose love fills us with true and lasting peace, joy and happiness.

Fr. Mike