You Can’t Take It with You: A Homily on Detachment and Faith
Readings and Virtual Homily for August 3, 2025, Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time; When Summer is Allowed to be Summer; Now Starts the Sabbatical
Readings for Mass this Sunday:
Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23
Psalm 90:3-6, 12-14, 17
Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11
Luke 12:13-21
Dear Friends and Family:
All four readings this weekend can be related easily and generally to a theme of non-attachment to the things of this world. We are built to last. Forever. The things of this world are not built to last. It is folly, therefore, to place our trust and a sense of security in our possessions. They might disappear overnight. Or, as the Gospel passage points out, WE might disappear overnight, might die suddenly and find ourselves in eternity where material things do not count for anything, and then what good would our earthly possessions be to us?
This theme might be broadened beyond the concept of material possessions. I have never had much in the way of "things," for example, so it is really pretty easy for me to say, "So what if I have to leave all my material possessions behind when I leave this world? They amount to a car, a computer and some clothes."
While I have little in the way of material possessions, however, I have had substantial experience with the "things of this world" if we are willing to broaden the category to include such considerations as personal ambition, professional reputation, professional recognition and advancement, and so on. I am not talking here about my career in the Church. I am talking about my ambitions as a writer.
Detached as I may be from the material goods of the world, since I have so few of them, I am well acquainted with another sort of "good;" I am well acquainted with another temptation to be attached to the world. I am well-acquainted with career ambition and the determination to succeed -- as a writer, as an artist. One's professional success, professional reputation, professional recognition and the variety of rewards that might come with real career achievement, though not necessarily material, are nonetheless very much "worldly things," and I readily confess to having pursued them with an almost ferocious energy and determination, and for my entire adult life.
I don't want to make this homily "all about me," but -- today's readings seem especially appropriate to my circumstances this summer, as we roll out the initial marketing stratagems at San Gabriel Media and are, at least for the moment, encountering a rapid and rising success. The videos at San Gabriel that are gaining hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube are videos that were scripted (that is, written) by me. In several cases, they are videos presented by me; in some cases they are videos performed by me. And, of course, the books available at our website are my brainchildren; I wrote them with love, with energy, with passion; I believe in them and hope to see them succeed.
Which, so far as it serves the greater purposes of God, is hunky-dory. If our YouTube programming and my books at San Gabriel can help people deepen their relationship with God, that is awesome. But detachment, on my part, from the worldly "things" of literary and artistic success is as important, with regard to today's readings, as is detachment from material possessions. The adage "You can't take it with you" applies as much to career achievement as it does to material possessions, as it does to money.
In the end, all of us are radically poor. Unable to save ourselves, we must throw ourselves on the love of the God who created us in love and for love. We must trust in that love -- God's love for us. In that, and in that alone, is our security, no matter how much the things of this world may give us a sense of security and of peace. The things of this world -- including those which are not material -- cannot save us. That is the unified message across today's readings.
I want to wrap this homily with the observation that, Father Jesus (our so very well-named pastor here at St, Clement) being in Mexico this and the next couple of weeks, I had a blast from the past this week. The only priest in the parish, believe me, I was in demand, the last seven days. I loved it. Much as I love the high school, my colleagues and my students there, I remain a parish priest at heart. There is very little, by way of a "the things of this world" temptation, in the day-in and day-out life of the parish priest. Just get out of bed in the morning and you may be assured, you will be doing God's will that day. I treasure my "work" in the parish. I put the word work in quotation marks because parish work, to me, is not work. It is life.
I often say at funeral Masses that the only "thing" we take with us, when we leave this world, is the love we have given away. Parish priesthood, to me, is love-with-legs, is love in day-in and day-out action. I had a GREAT week, here at St. Clement, just being "the only priest in the parish."
Well...It is the start of August. That is, the middle of summer. For the first time in ten years, I am able to relax and enjoy the summer for what it is -- SUMMER. For the first time in ten years -- since I started at the high school in 2015 -- I do not have to be pulling myself together for the academic year, in what amounts to the middle of summer.
I am grateful. Remember when summer ended (and school started) after Labor Day? Trust me, so do I and so do all my colleagues at O'Dowd (even those who are actually too young to remember it -- they have heard of it!). EVERYONE resents being back on campus the first week of August. I plan to spend several more years at the high school, and have no doubt that, at this juncture next year, I will be kvetching with the rest of my dear colleagues about our mid-summer return.
But not this summer. This summer, for me, summer actually gets to BE summer. That fact has me smiling.
And it reminds me that...I have been on summer vacation since the first of June. That would have happened regardless. Now starts the sabbatical. Now starts that dedication -- in terms of my focus and energy through to January 6 -- to our plans at San Gabriel Media. The next five months are 100% about evangelization, since evangelization is ALL we are about at SGM. Pray for us!
Gonna wrap it.
Take care and God Bless.
Fr. Brawn