Money, A Good Servant but a Bad Master
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24 September 1989
Buenos Aires, Argentina

My dear Friends,

It is a joy for me to set foot in your country once again. I am passing through Argentina on my way, first to Paraguay and from there to Colombia. So I am in a real way a true pilgrim. Pilgrims are always on the move. Pilgrims pass through many towns and cities, and everyone who knows that they are pilgrims, knows also that they have only a very limited time to pass in any one particular place.

Our whole life is a pilgrimage. We are on our way to that city whose Maker and Builder is God. We are on our way to take our place at a great celebration to which we have been invited. Jesus Christ has assured us that He has gone before us to prepare a place at the great festive table in our Father's house.

Admission to that great celebration is something that money cannot buy. The only currency that has any value to secure an entry to the celebration in heaven is that of love. In a world where so many things can be bought with money, often our minds center more on money than upon love. Jesus Christ, when He was on earth, had little or no money. In fact, in today's Gospel He tells us that we cannot give ourselves to God and to money. He gave Himself entirely to doing the Will of His Father in heaven and He did so by using the currency, not of money but of love.

Jesus Christ, however, was not so impractical as to despise utterly the use of money. He paid the Temple tax, and He graciously accepted food and drink that others provided for Him with hard-earned money. What Jesus Christ is saying to us in today's Gospel is that money, like fire, is a good servant but a bad master. Fire serves us well to cook our meals and to light and warm our houses. It is a good servant. But when fire rebels and dominates us, it can kill us and destroy the work of centuries.

It is likewise with money. When money is employed as a servant, it can bring joy and comfort to millions and especially to those who have little or none of it. But let money take the first place in our lives and it can become a tyrant. It can harden our hearts and blind our vision of the supreme realities of our existence. For many, it is only at the end of their lives that they realize that money, valuable as it may be, cannot be taken to the grave. "There are," as I once heard an old man express it, "no pockets in a shroud."

Money is a good servant, but a bad master. St. Vincent de Paul recognized that truth. Millions of dollars, or écus, passed through his hands and he made every cent a good servant. The only question he posed himself was: "Where can this servant be used best?" The money which his two Communities received or possessed, he regarded as "the patrimony of the poor." It was to be used in the interests of the poor.

Jesus Christ has said that the poor will always be with us. This is true. So, too, you might say, is money, sometimes more, sometimes less. When we find ourselves thinking much about money, it is at that moment we must also begin to think of the poor. In being generous to the poor, trying, when we can, to secure more justice for them, then we are, to quote Our Lord's words in today's Gospel, "making friends for ourselves through our use of this world's goods." It will be the poor, whom we have helped during our pilgrimage through life, who will be the first of our friends to welcome us to God's table in heaven. At times we worry about money. Sometimes we have reason to, and at other times our worry about money is groundless. Parents of families often worry about having sufficient money to pay their bills, sufficient money to educate their children. It is a justifiable worry. However, Our Lord encourages all of us to live only for the day, not to think too much about the problems of tomorrow. When we are concerned about money or the loss of it during life, we will find peace in these words, written by St. Vincent eighteen months before he died: "If by chance we have ever seen or heard, on any occasion, persons who serve God and trust in His goodness being without what they need for their condition in life, then we would have reason to be concerned for our own needs. The only thing we must do is to commend ourselves to His Providence, be faithful to our obligations and be certain that sooner or later God will provide that which He knows to be necessary for the accomplishment of the designs He has for us. Can we do anything else?" (Coste VII, Fr. ed., p. 543).

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