focus on what is present, not what is lacking

Homily

Wednesday of the 1st Week of Advent A

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center

1 December 2010

For daily readings click here

We are a nation that diets incessantly and yet still gains weight. We are a nation where the more we have, the less we give. We are a nation that despite our ability to work harder and get things done more efficiently, finds itself increasingly slothful and depressed. We have more entertainment options, and yet people are lonelier than ever. We yearn for true enduring love, and yet marriage is on the decline. We are an inherently ungrateful people, who focus habitually not on rejoicing in what is present, but in lamenting what we perceive to be lacking.

It has always been true that if a person is fulfilled and happy on the inside, there is no way to make them unhappy, and vice versa. There are people who in poverty only see superabundance of opportunity and gifts, and those in abundance who only see unfulfilled desire and who only know boredom.

Today's scriptures remind us that the Lord sees the world, and has each one of us in His hands. He knows our needs before we ask Him, and through His Son every human longing has been satisfied in superabundance, so that not only can we say that the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, but we can without reservation share what we have in faith with those who have no faith. For with the Lord there is superabundance, and to the one who has much, more will be given, and He will grow rich in what matters to God, but for the one who has not, even what he has, will be taken away.