So it is when a man stores up treasure for himself in place of making himself rich in the sight of God.

The SVD seminary that I attended in the USA was located in the midst of the richest suburbs of Chicago. Those suburbs were not there when the seminary was built in 1909. The location was then made up of mostly swamp-land and some farm-land, which is why the Society could afford to purchase the land. However, as the swamp was drained and the farms disappeared, suburbs housing very wealthy people developed. By the time I was a seminarian in the 1950s we were surrounded by very well-developed suburbs and beautiful and expensive homes.

Once a month we were allowed to leave the seminary grounds and go walking in the near-by suburbs. (We were given 25 cents so that we could buy some ice cream or a milk shake!) As we walked and admired the beautiful houses we would rather superciliously say to one another: but do you think they are really happy? I believe that deep down, since most of us came from the lower middle class, we felt that you could not be a good Christian and be wealthy at the same time. Believe it or not, we almost felt sorry for them with their wealth and their big houses.

God must have known that I needed a further education in this matter. When I returned from doing my Master’s Degree in Church History at The Catholic University of America in 1965 my Superior assigned me to help out regularly on weekends in our neighbouring parish – one of the wealthiest parishes in the diocese! I was there for four years before being transferred to Washington, D.C. It was a divine education for me.

In those four years I did not meet one single Catholic who was dedicated to enriching himself or herself further just so that they and their family could have a more comfortable way of life. Yes, they were concerned about making money, but that was because they had parents who needed help and children to provide for; it never seemed to be about self-aggrandizement. I am not saying there might not have been people living in the suburb who lived just to increase their wealth. I just never met them in the Catholic community.

They were incredibly generous both with their money and their time. The parish priest simply had to announce that some repair work needed to be done or something new for the Church had to be bought and someone was there after the Mass to write out the cheque. As a parish community they “twinned” with an African-American parish on the South Side that constantly needed help. Every week some would go there to deliver food, or furniture, or whatever else was needed. They simply did not drop off these things; they stayed and shared time with these parishioners. They contributed generously to scholarships for poor young people who could not otherwise go to University. Some of them would go every week to help out in a “soup kitchen” in “downtown Chicago”.

There was one man in particular whose generosity I myself experienced. He was very bright and very competent. He graduated from Harvard first in his class in Business and third in his class in Law. He was the Vice-President of one of the largest investment firms in the city. One time after Mass he came into the sacristy and said: Father, you have a great message, but it is not getting across. I told him that I didn’t know how to talk to these wealthy people and asked him if he would help me. He said “gladly”. For six months this man, whose time was worth about $200 an hour, would come to the seminary on Saturday and go through my sermon with me. He would help me clarify what it was that I wanted to say. He would sometimes say: I know what you are saying, Father, but if you say it that way they won’t hear you. And so he would help me reword the message. On Sunday he would come to the 11 AM Mass and afterwards would come to the sacristy and would tell me: this or that point did not come across. He would then come back for the Noon Mass and let me know afterwards if I had got the point across. He was not trying to make me an outstanding preacher. He was willing to give up this time because he was concerned that the people in his parish would hear the word of God. He, like many others, in the parish were “storing up treasures for themselves” in heaven.