Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. Make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Good morning.

Today we celebrate the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Opening Prayer O God, who founded all the commands of your sacred law upon love of you and of our neighbor, grant that by keeping your precepts we merit to attain eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. A reading from the Old Testament from the book of the Prophet Amos, 8th chapter 47 Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land. When will the new moon be over? You ask that we may sell our grain and the Sabbath that we may display the wheat, we will diminish the Ephraim, add to the shekel, and fix the scales for cheating.

We will buy the lowly for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals. Even the refuse of wheat we will sell. The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob. Never will I forget a thing they have done. The Word of the Lord. Responsorial Psalm Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor.

A reading from the first letter of St. Paul to Timothy, second chapter, first through the eighth verse. Beloved first of all, I ask that supplication, prayers, petitions, and thanksgiving be offered for everyone, for kings, and for all in authority. What the hell? I am so sorry. First of all, I ask that supplication, prayers, petitions, and thanksgiving be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.

This is good and pleasing to God, our Savior, who wills everyone be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. There’s also one Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as ransom for all. This was the testimony at the proper time for this I was appointed preacher and apostle. I am speaking the truth. I am not lying.

Teacher of the Gentiles, in faith and in truth. It is my wish Then that in every place men should pray, lifting up their hands without anger or argument. The word of the Lord. Now le verse. Though our Lord Jesus Christ was rich, he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. The gospel for this Sunday is taken from St.

Luke, 16th chapter. First through the 13th verse. Jesus said to his disciples, a rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, what is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward. The steward said to himself, what shall I do now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me?

I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do when I’m removed from the stewardship, that Maple may welcome me into their homes. He called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, how much do you owe, my master? He applied 100 measures of olive oil. He said to him, here is your promissory note.

Sit down and quickly write one for 50. Then to another the steward said, and you, how much do you owe? He replied, 100 cores of wheat. The steward said to him, here is your promissory note. Write one for 80. And the master commended that dishonest steward for his acting prudently.

For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth so that when it fails, you’ll be welcomed into eternal dwellings. The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones. And the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If, therefore, you are trustworthy with this honest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?

No servant can serve two masters who either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one, despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. The Gospel of the Lord. There’s something so beautiful, so simple, so human about this set of readings. I want to begin my thoughts with this image. The God who came into the world, the God who first revealed himself to Abraham and.

And then to his people through Moses and through the prophets. The whole process of that God revealing himself was this slow uncovering of a God who no one really expected. Gods were always demanding, always in need of being Worshiped, honored, praised, sacrifices offered to them over and over again. The image of we as human beings were to serve the gods by giving them things that we wanted for ourselves or maybe for others. But it was always this idea that we would give something away to him and he would be so pleased. Sacrifice, even sacrificing your children was a common thing.

But this God, this God of Abraham, this God who gave us the fullness of who he is, in this God, man, Jesus had another quality that was so beautiful and so attractive. And that is he has a weakness for us. A longing to take care of us, a longing to please us, a longing to give us the things that ultimately we really need. Not what we want necessarily, but what we really need. And one of the things he’s taught us is that we should pray. And not just to him, not just honoring him with our prayers, but we should pray for each other.

That’s the beautiful thing of that middle reading. It said that, you know, everyone should be working to pray for one another. And I often think to myself, you know, we’re asking God to do what God does. You know, please help my friends. Please make this person more aware, more conscious, helping him to turn away from that which destroys him. And it’s like we’re talking to God about doing what God is already intended to do.

Like we’re not praying to him to draw attention to someone who he hasn’t paid attention to. So why? Why do we pray like that? I think it’s somehow that God’s intention is to bring life to every human being. That’s who he is. And he’s created a world where that takes place.

But the world that he has created is not a world where we are basically robots doing what he says, but we’re free agents who can decide to choose to be a part of this process that God is so engaged in. Healing, caring for, taking care of people. We underestimate the power of our intention, the power of what we want. As if we think, well, God’s running everything. We’re just here to receive it. No, he’s made this strange relationship with us where we’re here to work with him, join him, be a part of the work that he does, an essential part.

Not that he can’t do it without us, but that he’s planned it this way. This is the way he wants it to be. So when you are engaged in the work of caring for your brothers and sisters by asking God to help them, you could imagine it. I’m really asking God to help me Be who I need to be for that person without having to say it that way, please help him. I’ll do anything you want me to do to be a part of that healing, to be a part of that freedom that I long for. The person who seems entrapped in something that destroys them.

Praying is a symbol of our being a part of who God is and what God is about. And he’s about compassion, empathy. The religion at the time that Jesus walked this earth was anything but compassionate and empathetic. They worked out a fine system so that if anybody was in need, anybody had a health problem or a financial problem, he wrote them off because they had obviously done something wrong, broken a law and they were being punished by God. So people who were struggling were to be considered outcasts. Just don’t get near them.

What a strange twisting of reality. Religion is often capable of that and it’s frightening that it can do that so effectively at times. So into this rigid system of control comes this God who reveals a heart in the person of Jesus particularly, that is mind boggling. He cares, he’s compassionate, he suffers with people who are suffering. The last thing he does is write them off. The first thing he does is rushes to see what I can do to help them.

And that intention to help them is so intense that it just overrides nature in a simple way of saying, here’s a power that is stronger than nature at the heart of nature. It can do anything. Anything. Heal things that can’t be healed by natural processes maybe. So we see this God revealing himself as someone who cares so deeply. And so you look at this verse in gospel reading and it’s so timely to me it seems it’s about God and mammon and mammon.

I’m not sure how to describe mammon, but the best way I can do it for you is when you have, when you are working, living, desiring nothing but what you want and what you need and you care nothing about who you take it from or how much pain you cause. That’s mammon. Total self centeredness, no compassion. Sociopathic life. Frightening. So the first reading talks about people who are in business and they’re saying, oh, they can’t wait for the, you know, the time to come when they’re setting their scales and they’re getting ready to sell and they’ve come up with all these schemes where they can sell impure properties by filling them with stuff that doesn’t make any value, has no value, they’re willing to fix their scales.

So when somebody Buys a pound of something, they’re really only getting three quarters of a pound and all this stuff. And they’re just so greedy and so anxious to suck life out of people through what they’ve considered to be really smart. Making a ton of money off of other people, Taking from those in need something that just makes them feel so much more important, perhaps more comfortable. It sounds so much like what we see so often in major, major corporations today. People making enormous amounts of money by sucking as much out of people as they can, as much as they’ll endure, as much as they’ll pay. That’s all they need to know is if they’ll pay for it.

We can charge it, and we can get more and more and more, and they’ll have less and less and less. That’s good business. Frightening. So we see then in the Gospel, Jesus pointing out this very, very real, real problem. What are you going to do? How are you going to deal with this part of your life?

So he brings up, I think, just a really simple and wonderful story. One of the things that he was so good at is sort of talking about life that was outside of the norms, the narrow norms that religion had fixed for us to consider to be acceptable. Now, one thing we knew, or you know, or we can know, you can find out that at the time that Jesus walked the earth, the religion that he was a part of forbade anyone to charge money for someone else for using money. In other words, to have a loan was considered immoral. To give a loan to someone was immoral. To charge them with nothing that you’re doing for them, you just gave them the use of your money for a while.

And to make them pay for that was considered to be absolutely unfair, unjust and wrong. So I love when Jesus can play with reality that goes way beyond those narrow, narrow restrictions of the way things are supposed to be. He talks about a man who is in the business of running somebody’s loan department, so to speak. And he’s in charge of payments coming back, which of course have been filled with interest. And so he’s about to lose his job. So he’s thinking, oh, man, I don’t want to go to work.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to beg. I’m too proud. I know what I’ll do. I’ll make friends. I’ll do something for people with my job.

I’ll give them something that they will so appreciate that when I’m let go, they will take care of me. I will establish a Healthy relationship with these people, one based in generosity, caring for them, using my position to make their position better. What a strange idea for business, some kinds of business. When they say, we’re here only to serve these customers, and. And we need to make sure we don’t make too much money because it’s not fair. We just need to make a good living.

They need to make a good living. So why would we want to be paid in extravagant amounts? I mean, so this would be just, you know, kind of silly. I mean, we’re all in this together. Let’s take care of each other. Let’s build these relationships.

So funny. Whenever you go to a place and you feel like you’re being ripped off, you know, by either a price that’s outlandish or by something, there’s something in you that just turns. I don’t know, it just makes you kind of sick. And you say, yeah, greed is everywhere. Get an estimate from one company and then you find another company to do it for half the price and the same product. And you go, what is going on?

And do you feel close to that business that wanted to make you pay twice the profit that someone else can live off of and make a profit and give you such a better price? I mean, of course you’re drawn to the person who takes care of you. What a. What a bizarre kind of concept. You know, businesses are there not to make money for the owners or the shareholders, but for the fairness and the goodness that they can bring to people. It’s a service.

It’s a service. Serve, serve, serve. That’s so much what Jesus wants us to understand about why we’re here. We’re all here to serve each other, give something to each other. And you know, the beauty of that is what happens to people in an environment where they are constantly being fed, nurtured, cared for. It’s amazing.

I mean, your whole disposition kind of changes. You feel good, you feel comfortable, you feel safe, and you want to do the same thing to other people. And that seems so clear to me, what Jesus is simply trying to say with this. And you know, when you see this man being condemned by the law, but being honored even by Jesus, saying, well, he’s really smart, I mean, that’s pretty wise. Take care of people, and surprise, surprise, they will take care of you. Take as much out of people all of your life you can, and you’re going to end up with no body, maybe a lot of money, maybe a lot of things, but nobody, no one.

And we’re not made for Possessions, we’re not made for things. They’re wonderful. There’s nothing wrong with them. There’s nothing wrong with having beautiful things, comfortable things. But when you do it at the price of everyone else, when you do it at the price of taking something away from people which is their right, then there’s something absolutely out of balance. There’s something else I think I want you to feel with me in these readings is what God is trying to say to us is that this God that is.

Well, let me put it this way. I like the image that I read when St Catherine of Siena was having a vision with Jesus and she was saying to him, you know, I really want to do something for my God, for you. You saved me. I love you. How can I love you? How can I show you something that makes you happy?

What can I give you? What do you want from me? There was a time in the church where we thought, well, the more pain I’m in, the more that pleases God. That was wrong. We worked through that. So the answer that Jesus gave to Catherine was simply, I don’t need your love in that way.

I’m full, I’m fine. But when you love the people I created, oh, that pleases me. That makes me so happy. Imagine creating everyone out of pure love and loving everyone exactly the same and knowing that they are going to be responding to other people by the way they’ve been treated. And when he sees us mistreating each other and creating in us a negative feeling, feeling toward other people, a fear that we’re always going to be taken or being used, or a lack of trust in giving yourself over to someone because they’re going to take advantage of you. All of that is things that we have created out of a disposition of mammon.

Mammon. I want more. I want more. I want more. I think if I had more, I’ll be more. If I have more than you, I am more than you.

So at times it’s important to talk about all the theology. It’s important to talk about the Church and all of its regulations and rules, and let’s hopefully believe that they are intended to be helpful for people. But the Catholic Church has always taught that when people are being given a rule, a regulation, a law, and it doesn’t work, it doesn’t produce what it promises, they have the right to stand up and speak, and the Church has an obligation to change. That’s not changed doctrine, that’s changed morals. So we have, based in Christianity a very strong notion that the church is here God is here. We are here for each other to allow this love, this care, this compassion, this empathy flow between us.

And I’m smiling right now because it seems, gosh, how simple is that? How simple is it to go into a day and want that to be the theme of the day, Trusting people. Not naively, but trusting in them. Walking away from the people you can’t trust, but being there for the people you can, and giving them things that they need and just selflessly giving them things. We can talk about a money exchange where you charge more than is fair and you make an abundant profit. You can talk about that in relationships when you give love only to make sure you’re controlling the person and get something back.

It’s the same problem, Mammon, self, self interest, control. It’s the thing that is deadly in this kingdom. And the kingdom is here to bring light and life and peace. And it does if it’s given a chance to be exactly what it was intended to be. Sarah Father, your love, your compassion, your empathy for us is beyond our imagining. It’s hard for us to believe that we are loved that way, so unconditionally, so completely.

Unfortunately, it’s not the experience we have with your institutions, your leadership, our friends, our family, and we have to be careful that we don’t confuse you and your beautiful care and love with those people who represent you. So bless us with a clear, clean vision of you, all that you are, all that you long to be for us. Let us live in that new land. We’re fed, nourished with you, and we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show.

Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, a listener supported program and is archived and available on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast, Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a NonProfit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey.

Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios Copyright 2023.