29th Week of the Year A – Monday 19.10.2026
Reflection Theme: “Place of Material Possessions in Life”
By: Rev. Fr. Fredrick Kiwanuka
Gospel Reading: Luke 12:13-21
Jesus says, “Avoid greed in all its forms; a man may be wealthy, but his material possessions do not guarantee him life.”
A generous soul, God-centered and responding to the gift of faith, would see the emptiness of the material gains for which our pride thirsts.
Out of a request to tell his brother to divide the inheritance with him, there came to Jesus an opportunity to lay down what his followers’ attitude to material things should be. To those who had an abundant supply of possessions, Jesus spoke this parable of the rich fool.
The rich fool never saw beyond himself! He is self-centred. When this man had a superfluity of goods, the one thing that never entered his head was to give any away. His whole attitude was the very reverse of Christianity.
Instead of finding his happiness in giving, he tried to conserve it by keeping. So long as a man’s attitude is that of the rich fool, his desire will always be to get more, and that is the reverse of the Christian way.
The rich fool never saw beyond this world! He made all his plans on the basis of life here. The man who never remembers that another world exists is destined someday for the grimmest of grim shocks!
To those who had few material possessions, Jesus forbade anxious thought or worry. Jesus never ordered any man to live in a shiftless or reckless way. What he did tell a man was to do his best and leave the rest to God.
Jesus said, “God looks after the birds and flowers; how much more will he care for you?”
Jesus calls us to “seek first the Kingdom of God”; that is, we bend all our lives to obeying God’s will and rest content with that.
So many people give all their effort to heap up things which in their very nature cannot last. Work for the things which last forever, which you need not leave behind when you leave this earth, but which you can take with you.
