Wealth, pleasure, power, and honor… What is it that motivates us? According to St. Thomas Aquinas, wealth, pleasure, power, and honor are the four ways we try to substitute God. In many ways I think this is true. In the Gospel our focus is on wealth. We hear the person from the crowd complain to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me." We have all experienced the greed of others, and we often fall into the same trap. Jesus warns the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

We can probably all think about something in this world we are too attached to. Just think about the technology or comforts we turn to in our lives. What are you attached to? It is easy to become attached to comfort or what is familiar to us. The world is full of good things but if we choose to value them over God, we will never find happiness. The goods of this world will never satisfy us. Really, all three readings today point to this one fundamental spiritual truth, the need to detach oneself from the goods of the world. 

In our second reading St. Paul reinforces the same message of the Gospel. He tells us, “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth." From our first reading it is interesting to note, the author of Ecclesiastes is understood to be King Solomon. Here is a man who has experienced every earthly pleasure the world has to offer. He has wealth, power, pleasure, and honor. And yet in the end, as our readings tell us, it never satisfies us, it is all temporary, there one moment and gone the next. 

I encourage you to reflect upon the question, what am I attached to? What is it that I cling to in this world? Are we like the rich fool of the gospel? Or maybe like the rich young man who goes away sad because he had many possessions. Jesus tells us God has more to offer us than the world can ever give. I think we all know this in our hearts, but we all need a reminder. God is offering us the pearl of great price, he is offering us himself. He is the treasure we should seek, but to receive that gift we must first be detached from the world.