You're listening to the I Pray with the Gospel Sunday Reflection on the St. Jose Maria Institute podcast.

In the name of the Father and of the, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me.

I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and the grace to make this

time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and Lord,

my guardian angel, intercede for me.

The 18th Sunday in ordinary time.

A reading from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12.

The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully,

and he thought to himself, what shall I do,

for I have nowhere to store my crops? And he said, I will do this. I will pull down my barns and

build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul,

soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink,

and be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things

you are prepared, whose will they be? So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich

towards God. Jesus is warning us against covenness, the desire to possess and keep more and more things.

For in the end, we will die, like the man in the parable, and we won't be able to take our possessions

with us. Those who are anxious about material things are never satisfied. They don't find peace, and worse of all, they don't find God.

The story of the rich young man reminds us of it.

He preferred his fields, cows, and sheep over God.

For Christians, poverty is a virtue.

It allows us to fly high to God, but we can't fly high if we are loaded with

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