Today’s readings: Wisdom 18, 6-9; Hebrews 11, 1-2.8-19; Luke 12, 32-48.

The success of bestsellers in pop psychology and the spiritual growth market is understandable in that they seek to provide hope for a generation hungry for meaning and wholeness. Many people have given up on politics and on the dream of a more just world.What this market addresses instead is a spirituality of the self, focussing on individual well-being. We are not always aware of how this downplays social and political commitment, leading eventually to the privatisation of religion. As Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles Chaput said in a public lecture in 2014: “Private belief fits very comfortably in a consumer democracy”.

But is this the religion we need? Is this the legacy that as faith communities we are passing on to the generation now taking our place? We read today from Hebrews in the second reading that “it was for faith that our ancestors were commended”.

Our forefathers and foremothers treasured their religion, and their faith shaped their lives and their way of thinking and impacted quite firmly on the social fabric of the world they inhabited. Even in today’s first reading from Wisdom we read that “once they saw what kind of oaths they had put their trust in, they would joyfully take courage”. Faith for them was their daily living and source of their spiritual energy.

The faith we profess and the call to discipleship is not a matter of personal goodness and righteousness. It should make us realise that what we do as believers has consequences for others, and is meant to impact on the conscience of our country.

Today though, we all acknowledge helplessly that we live in a secularised society and that the entire fabric of society has changed, with the result that the faith we received from the past impacts less and less on the way we think and live. Whenever we engage in such talk, what instantly comes to mind is the retreat of religion from the public space or the decline of religious belief and practice in the modern world.

Yet what is more worrying is not so much the declining numbers of church-goers but rather the fact that we have hardly found a substitute for religion. Life is still very difficult and human fragility stands out very clearly as a trademark of the present-day situation in politics, economics, and in whatever determines and conditions the way we live.

In the gospel, Jesus speaks about fear, about the impending danger of someone who might “break through the wall of our house”. He warns also about the need to stand ready, in order not to be taken unawares. Faith, as presented in Wisdom and in Hebrews, is the antidote to all this; it guarantees the blessings we hope for and it proves the existence of realities that at present remain unseen.

It is no easy task to decipher what lies in people’s hearts. The words of Jesus today speak loud and clear that to know who we are we need first to identify what is there in our treasure boxes because “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”. What at the end of the day today’s readings are conveying to us is a very basic question that concerns the solid ground under our feet. In his Catechism, Martin Luther wrote: “Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your god”.

Our ancestors were commended for their faith, which gave them courage in the face of fear. What keeps us going in this day and age? Who and what we worship shapes our hearts. But we may not fully realise the ways our hearts are made to worship rival gods instead of the living God for who we were made. In the fifth century St Augustine already had the insight that we are shaped mostly by what we love most.

The longing Augustine addresses mostly is less like an intellectual puzzle to be solved and more like a craving for sustenance. We have to make even our faith sustainable in our times. Faith cannot be reduced merely to a question of personal values with little space for common meaning or shared purpose. If the collectivity lacks a common discourse, it would be difficult to speak of collective responsibility.

The worst that can happen to a generation is that it has no legacy to pass on to later generations because that would transform our societies into ‘crowds of solitude’ and make people more fragile and vulnerable.

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