Where Your Treasure Is

June 20, 2008
Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be. Matthew 6:22-23

Piety
Jesus son of David, have pity on me for investing blindly in the index funds of the world without regard to how my money is used to support the values you ask me to share. Open my mind, my heart and my eyes to the needs of the world and show me how to use my resources for the commonwealth of all. Amen.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/062008.shtml

“We read the Gospel as if we had no money, and we spend our money as if we know nothing of the Gospel.” – John Haughey, S.J. (as quoted by the Bartimaeus Cooperative).

So have you reconciled your bank statement anytime recently? Or checked the balance in your 401(K) or Thrift Savings Account? So how can we “dollar-cost average” the treasures we are encouraged to store up in heaven?

Reading today’s Gospel makes it particularly difficult to reconcile ‘storing up” such treasures on earth while there are so many people who face such overwhelming poverty.

Yesterday we took time to imagine Jesus teaching us to pray. We all know that “Jesus Saves.” So how would Jesus teach us to save?

Action

As we save for legitimate purposes, we should be aware of how our money is being used while we sleep. It takes some research. But if you oppose (fill in the blank), are you sure that your retirement fund is not investing in practices or industries to which you would not offer support?

It was quite easy to shift funds in my retirement account into what is called a socially responsible fund. A little research at the site http://www.sri-advisor.com/index.html will show you some of the many social index investment funds and information on how they screen investment choices. Several funds use Catholic Social Teaching as a basis for investment decisions. You don’t have to sacrifice your personal beliefs along the way to saving for the education of your children, expenses in retirement, or other goals.

After doing your research, a simple call to the toll-free number of your investment company will start you on the road to investing in ways that conform to your personal values and the Gospel values.