From my teaching to my RCIA class on the seven deadly sins - Covetousness or Greed:
CAPITAL SINS: Covetousness - Avarice - Avarita
aka parsimony, sharp business practice, Enterprise, Efficiency, …]
Gluttony, the warm sin of the excessive enjoyment of goods, turns into the cold sin of Covetousness, the ceaseless effort to amass goods simply for the sake of having them. The covetous one no longer uses goods to support life; he lives to amass and support his goods; they are his master. [What did Imelda Marcos ever do with 500 pairs of shoes?] One of the saddest stories in the Gospels is the Rich Young Man [Mt 19:21]. Jesus calls him to be a disciple, maybe even an apostle, but he cannot free himself of the material bonds he has created.
It is a respectable sin. We admire the multimillionaires who run large corporations not so much for the usefulness of their products, or the well being of their workers, but for their success, and we condemn them only when they fail. Our industry is geared not to meeting basic needs, but to creating need, through advertising, for what it produces. We tend to value our work not by how it benefit’s the mankind but by the income it provides for us.
Yet the more we have the more we want. It is a sin that feeds on itself. And as it grows it binds us ever more strongly to this world. Our possessions must be cared for, maintained, protected. The more we have the more reluctant we are to let it go; as one day we must. In one of her apparitions Mary called us to hold our possessions loosely. If we let them go now, it will hurt less the day they are taken from us. Solomon reflects on this in Ecclesiastes.
Note the parable of the farmer with the great harvest -
Luke 12:15-21 -
And he said to them, “Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
16] And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully;
17] and he thought to himself, What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' **18**] And he said, I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
19] And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’
20] But God said to him, `Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
21] So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
There is nothing wrong in having possessions, but hold them loosely and use them wisely. You are on a journey and must travel lightly if you are to complete it.
