“Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me...” (Luke 12:13)
Saint Ambrose of Milan offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel proclamation:
“This whole passage is provided so that suffering may be endured for confession of the Lord…. Since greed is often accustomed to tempt virtue, the Lord adds the precept to remove this sin by stating the precedent, “Who has appointed me judge or divider over you?” He who descended for a divine purpose fittingly declines earthly tasks and does not allow himself to be a judge of lawsuits and an arbitrator of riches. He is to judge the living and the dead and apportion deserts.1 You must not consider what you seek but from whom you request it. You must also not think that you must shout against big or little things. This brother is fittingly rebuked. He eagerly desired to trouble the steward of the heavenly with the corruptible. Not a neutral judge but piety as mediator should divide an inheritance among brothers, although people should seek an inheritance of immortality, not of money.” (Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, 7.)
Collect
O God,
Who are rich in mercy
and Who willed that Saint John Paul the Second
should preside as Pope over Your universal Church,
grant, we pray, that instructed by his teaching,
we may open our hearts to the saving grace of Christ,
the sole Redeemer of mankind.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Who are rich in mercy
and Who willed that Saint John Paul the Second
should preside as Pope over Your universal Church,
grant, we pray, that instructed by his teaching,
we may open our hearts to the saving grace of Christ,
the sole Redeemer of mankind.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
