Message

The proper use of wealth

"When I think of how short life is, I’m painfully reminded of how constantly preoccupied with material well-being you on earth are. At the same time, you give little time or significance to your moral improvement, even though this is what really matters in Eternity. You put so much effort into your material well-being, one would think that you’re dealing with a question of enormous importance for humanity. But in most cases, this work is no more than an attempt to satisfy exaggerated needs, to please vanity, to surrender to indulgence. You cause yourselves so much pain, heartache, and stress. Think of all the sleepless nights you spend trying to find a way to get more money when you often already have more than enough.

As a crowning blindness, you often find people who are so enamored of money (and the lifestyle it affords) that they will subject themselves to long and tiring workdays, and afterwards boast about the life of sacrifice and merit they lead- as if they weren’t really working for themselves but others. How very foolish you can be! Do you really think that the care and effort you put into amassing more money will count for much when you are solely motivated by selfishness and greed, especially when you neglect your own spiritual future and the duties of fraternity that are part of life in society? Your thoughts have been centered on the well-being of your physical bodies. For the sake of the body, which will die, you’ve woefully neglected your spirit, which will live forever. This is how that spoiled and flattered lord, your body, comes to rule over you; it dominates your soul, making you its slave. Can this possibly be the reason God granted you life?"