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Dear brothers and  sisters in Christ, 

The Parable of the  Rich Man and Lazarus is, I always find, especially strong in tone. Jesus  gives the rich man no name, yet the poor man has that dignity. At the end of  the parable, Jesus points out that "even if someone should rise from the  dead" the rich man’s relatives would not be convinced. Jesus, of course,  does rise from the dead and His warning is an indication of the all-absorbing  lure of riches and power.  

Like the people  against whom Amos speaks in the first reading, the rich man in the parable  cares nothing for others.  

Jesus speaks  elsewhere in the Gospel about the lure of riches – in the Parable of the  Sower, this is one of the things that chokes the growing shoots, strangling  them and preventing the crop.

St Paul, writing  to Timothy, provides us with the way forward: our lives must be marked by  faith, love, patience and gentleness. We are called to be saints. This path  is not an easy one – the gospels are filled with the Lord’s warning of the  hard road, the narrow gate, the call not to look back, but to keep our gaze  on Him, that our steps do not stray.

Let us take the  warning of the parable to heart, together with the guidance offered us by St  Paul, that we do not fall into the traps that lie all around us, but keep  mind and heart, every effort, on the building of the Kingdom of God in love  and service – for this is true riches.

With every  blessing,

+Richard

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