“Be
Rich… In What Matters to God” (Homily #159)
by Deacon Dennis Purificacion
Be rich… Be rich… in what matters to God! Most of us are familiar with St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower. However, while most of us are familiar with St. Therese, many of us are not familiar with her parents who are also canonized saints: Her dad, St. Louis Martin, and her mom, St. Zelie Martin. The Church celebrates their feast on July 12. They lived about 150 years ago, kind of like our great grandparents. We have actual black and white photos of this family of saints and even Louis and Zelie’s love letters they wrote to each other.
Louis and Zelie had 9 children, but only 5 daughters survived into adulthood. The dad had nicknames for his daughters: Marie was his “diamond,” Pauline his “noble pearl,” Leonie who is a candidate for sainthood, Celine the “bold one,” and Therese who was his “little queen to whom all treasures belonged.” St. Louis was a watchmaker, and Zelie was a lacemaker, her family business. Unfortunately, Zelie was diagnosed with breast cancer but kept this from her husband until it was too late, and she died at age 45, leaving Louis widowed as a single parent to raise the girls. Louis raised his girls, and two of them later took care of him in old age before his own death, after he was paralyzed with two strokes. “In Heaven.”
So, during the process to beatify (or declare blessed) the parents with the Vatican department responsible for investigating new saints, Marie testified the following:
“My father and mother had a deep faith. In listening to them speak of eternity, we were disposed, although quite young at the time, to look on all things of this world as pure vanity. Mamma used to repeat wholeheartedly: True happiness is not to be found in this world. It is a complete loss of time to try to find it here. Under what illusions do the majority of men live! …the heart which seeks anything outside of God is never satisfied. … I do not want to be attached to anyone except God and my family.”
And again, Marie said of her mom, “Although she could not bear wasting things, she spared nothing when there was question of our education and spiritual welfare. Money is nothing when there is question of one’s sanctification or the perfection of a soul.” And “God has arranged things that way to remind us that this earth is not our true home.” And this is the first of three main points: That the life of this modern-day wife and mother saint shows us how to be rich in what matters to God.
The second point is on today’s Gospel where Jesus himself teaches us to be rich in what matters to God. Jesus said, “Take care to guard against all greed, for even though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.” Our Lord is shifting our attitudes and our hearts to things of Heaven. St. Zelie Martin and her husband clearly lived this out. St. Zelie said material things do not define the human person. One’s true wealth, one’s spiritual bank account, one lottery ticket, one’s Cash Creek, is to be only in God. Our hearts were made for God, says St. Augustine, and our hearts will not rest until they rest in God. St. Theresa of Avila said, “Only God satisfies.” And in today’s First Reading, it is written in the Book of Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, all is vanity.” Qoheleth is the Preacher who reminds the people that any type of riches, such as worldly knowledge, wealth, honor, pleasure, and ambition need to be oriented to the service of God. These modern-day married saints show us how to become spiritually rich during our short lives on earth.
The Martin Family especially gave importance to the greatest spiritual richness of observing the Sabbath day, the Third Commandment. St. Zelie wrote, “All faithful observers of the Lord’s Day, perfect or imperfect, are blessed in their enterprises; in the end, in one way or another they become rich.” In other words, my soul becomes rich and wealthy when I unite my life to the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass, when the priest offers the Body and Blood of Christ to the Eternal Father in a bloodless manner, a liturgical act most pleasing to our loving Heavenly Father.
Okay, so to recall the two of three main points so far, first, we see the life of St. Louis and St. Zelie Martin, parents of St. Therese the Little Flower, and how they were rich in what matters to God. Second, we see how these modern-day saints lived today’s Gospel. But here’s the third and final point: We too can be rich in what matters to God.
Aside from being rich by living the 3rd Commandment of Keeping Holy the Sabbath Day, another couple of things we can do is do what St. Therese, one of the women doctors of the Church, did:
Firstly, we can live a life of prayer and sacrifice for the love of Jesus. When St. Therese was preparing for her First Holy Communion, she was shown how to do prayers and sacrifices, to offer up little inconveniences, especially for poor sinners that have nobody to pray and sacrifice for them.
St. Therese, the Little Flower, is also known for her “Little Way.” She used to say, “Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our acts, or even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”
Many saints became saints because they read about and imitated the lives of the saints. St. Ignatius Loyola did this and said, “If those saints can do this, then so can I.” He asked, “What good is it if I gain the whole world but lose my soul?”
To summarize: (1) First, we see how an ordinary family became spiritually rich in what matters to God and eventually became a family of saints; (2) Second, we hear from the Word of God how Christ Himself calls us to be rich in what matters to God; (3) and third, we heard of some practical ways to build real treasure on earth on our journey home to Heaven.
Be rich…. in what matters to God. I leave you with the words from the Second Reading of St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians:
If you were raised with Christ, seek what is
above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died,
and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died,
and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
(Be rich in what matters to God.)
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| (the actual blood-sisters of St. Therese) |
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Ven. Leonie (candidate for sainthood), St. Therese's sister
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