One Minute Reflection – 22 October – Today’s Gospel: Luke 12:13–21 – Monday of the Twenty Ninth week in Ordinary Time, Year B and The Memorial of St Pope John Paul II (1920-2005)
“But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’“…Luke 12:20
REFLECTION – “The fool in the Bible, the one who does not want to learn from the experience of visible things, that nothing lasts forever but that all things pass away, youth and physical strength, amenities and important roles. Making one’s life depend on such an ephemeral reality is therefore foolishness. The person who trusts in the Lord, on the other hand, does not fear the adversities of life, nor the inevitable reality of death, he is the person who has acquired a wise heart, like the Saints.”…Pope Benedict XVI – Angelus 1 August 2010
“The rich man, clinging to his immense fortune, is convinced that he will succeed in overcoming death….Indeed, like all other men and women, rich and poor, wise and foolish alike, he is doomed to end in the grave, as happens likewise to the powerful and he will have to leave behind on earth that gold so dear to him and those material possessions he so idolised.” – St Pope John Paul II 20 October 2004
PRAYER – Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to Yours and serve Your majesty in sincerity of heart. Teach us to lay up riches in heaven and may the prayers of St John Paul assist us in our daily struggles against the idols of the world. 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.