Luke 12: 13-21 (links validated 7/6/22)

Illustrated New Resources

  • What If You Have Just One Day?

    by Jim Chern
    It’s hard to find things on social media that can actually catch your attention and stop your scrolling – but seeing the post “waited an hour to see ‘the corpse flower’ today” definitely was enough to pique my interest. The Amorphophallus titanium – the actual name for the “corpse flower” is one of the rarest and most unique plants in the world. It’s considered one of the largest flowers to bloom. It has one of the smelliest, foulest, and most repugnant of scents (hence the nickname, corpse flower) and what drives even more interest, is that it takes the plant over a decade for its huge lily-like – flower to finally bloom – and then after that, it’s bloom only lasts for a day before the bloom closes up and dies. The University of California, Riverside, Botanic Gardens shared a post on YouTube from the corpse flowers blooming that took place last week so you could see the plant open its bloom in a minute-long time-lapse video. There’s something so beautifully simple when you think about it – this plant has been nurtured, grown, cultivated, all for this one moment – these 24 hours where the fulfillment of its life will be on display for all to see – and then it will fade away...
  • Sermon Starters (Proper 13C)(2022)

    by Chelsey Harmon
    Last year HBO’s The Gilded Age premiered with an all-star cast. For those with a little knowledge of history, the Gilded Age was the period of time (1870-1900, i.e., Rockefeller at his prime) when the US economy saw significant expansion as wealth was accumulated by a new group of people (not just the generational wealth of old money) through industrialization. The result was a clear concentration of wealth in society and many workers continued to suffer from poverty and inequality. (The term “The Gilded Age” comes from a novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner; Warner and Twain used it to comment on how all of the social problems were simply covered by a thin gold gilding.) There are two central families in the show, one with “old money” (generational wealth), and one with “new money.” Both families are engaged in philanthropy (giving time and money to charitable causes), but for the most part the purpose of the philanthropy is usually pointed towards selfish purposes...
  • Ordinary 18C (2022)

    by Tony Kadavil
    Dr. Carl Menninger, the world-renowned psychiatrist, was talking on one occasion to an unhappy but wealthy patient. He asked the patient what he was going to do with so much money. The patient replied, “Just worry about it, I suppose.” Menninger asked, “Well, do you get that much pleasure from worrying about it?” “No,” responded the patient, “but I get terrified when I think of giving some of it to somebody else.” Then Dr. Menninger went on to say something quite profound. He said, “Generous people are rarely mentally ill.”...
  • Whoever Has the Most...Loses

    by Joe Pellegrino
    A number of years ago I visited a retired lady who told me that she had allowed her entire life to revolve around making money. She was industrious. She was successful. I visited her in her dream house. Her living room looked like the display room of an expensive department store. She had anything and everything she could possibly want. You know what she said to me. She said, “Father, I am so empty. I’ve killed myself all my life for what I have, and it isn’t enough. I’ve wasted all my energy on things. Honestly, I would be happy to give all this stuff back if I could relive those times when money was more important to me than God...
  • The Man Who Mistook His Life for a Barn

    by Ben Stewart
    Do you talk to yourself? Maybe have full-on conversations, both inside your head and out loud? If so, you’re not alone. University of Michigan Psychologist Ethan Kross published a fascinating book last year about inner conversations, titled Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It. Dr. Kross observes that our inner voice can be encouraging, “You can do it, Ben!” or accusatory, “That’s going to go terribly, and people are going to laugh at you.” That voice inside can be more or less correct, or more or less wrong, and of course that voice sometimes becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. One of the things that amazed me in this book is just how chatty we are with ourselves, including how fast our internal conversations unfold...
  • Ordinary 18C (2022)(SS)

    by Bill Thomas
    Landon Parvin in the “Leaders” section of Readers Digest (May 1996) wrote a humous anecdote that connects with this text. A miserly man was called on by the chairman of the community charity. “Sir,” said the fund-raiser, “our records show that despite your wealth, you’ve never once given to our drive.” “Do your records show that I have an elderly mother who was left penniless when my father died? fumed the tightwad. “Do your records show that I have a disabled brother who is unable to work? Do your records show I have a widowed sister with small children who can barely make ends meet?” “No, sir,” replied the volunteer. “Our records don’t show that.” Without missing a beat, the man answered, “Well, I don’t give to any of them, so why should I give anything to you?”

Other New Resources

Recommended Resources

[Based on requests from several members (although I am reluctant to do so since my favorites may not be those of others), I am listing here some of my own favorite resources. FWIW!!]
  • Being Poor in Spirit

    Illustrations from the Archives
  • Illustrations on Trust

    from the Archives
  • A Place Prepared by God

    An Illustration on Trust
  • Stuff

    by George Carlin
    sounds like a sermon here somewhere!!
  • American Greed

    from CNBC Cable
    (includes several true stories of modern day greed)
  • Inheritance, Greed and Living Toward God

    by D. Mark Davis
    (Includes lots of Greek exegesis!!)
  • Stuff

    Song by Diamond Rio
    See video here. See also subsequent video It's All in Your Head with Martin Sheen.
  • Rich Man Fool

    by Jerry Fuller, OMI
    ("Bruce Larson tells a story in his book Edge of Adventure. It's about a letter found in a baking-powder tin wired to the handle of an old pump, which offered the only hope of drinking water on a very long and seldom-used trail across the Amargosa Desert. It read as follows: 'This pump is alright as of June 1932..." and several other illustrations)
  • Trust in God

    by Sil Galvan
    I'd heard every horror story there was about the Mojave - radiators that boil dry, blow-outs, relentless sun that crisps fragile flesh, the sheer isolation of the long asphalt strip that winds its way through the rocky desolation. Hours with no bathroom, no water ... nothing. No help. That frightened me the most. If we got into trouble, who would help us? How could I protect my children if the worst happened? They were dependent on me, and for the first time in my life, I had ... nobody. Noticing the Bible clutched in my hand, I realized I hadn't had time for that day's devotional. Almost mechanically, I opened it to my bookmark, skimming for the verses where I'd left off somewhere in Revelation. Let's see ... chapter 12. I began to read. Oh, yes, the woman and the dragon. A familiar passage. A scene of dramatic rescue as the child was snatched up to God and to his throne. I read on: "The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of..." I sat up straight, my heart pounding. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God.
  • What's in Your Barn?

    by John Jewell
    ("A woman in our church put something wonderful in her barn this last Christmas. She has three children and several grandchildren. But this year, after participating in a missions giving festival in the church, she decided to give each of her children's families a check for $200 and asked them to decide with the grandchildren just how they would like to spend the money – on people who really needed it!..." and other illustrations)
  • Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool

    by Martin Luther King, Jr.
    ("The other day in Atlanta, the wife of a man had an automobile accident. He received a call that the accident had taken place on the expressway. The first question he asked when he received the call: 'How much damage did it do to my Cadillac?' He never asked how his wife was doing...This man was a fool because he failed to realize his dependence on others..." and other moving illustrations)
  • Proper 13C

    by Bill Loader
    always good insights!
  • Tearing Down Barns

    by Jim McCrea
    ("In the mid-1950's, Green County, Kentucky was the location of one of the most fantastic oil strikes in the nation. High production wells were brought in at depths of 150 to 300 feet in front yards, side yards, gardens, barn lots, corn fields, and even the five-acre plot owned by a small, little church. 'The church's one-eighth share of the income from the 15 or more wells drilled on its land soon came to represent a tidy sum..." and other illustrations)
  • This New House

    from Mother Jones Magazine
    ("The American Dream just keeps growing. Since 1970 the size of the average new home has ballooned by 50 percent....")
  • Self-Storage Association Fact Sheet

    from Self-Storage Association
    ("The self storage industry has been the fastest-growing sector of the United States commercial real estate industry over the period of the last 30 years...")
  • Out of the Mouths of Babes

    by Ron Springer
    My daughter asked me a question three times last week. She's eight, and whenever she persists in her inquiries, it usually means that the answers I have been giving her have not quelled her curiosity. The question arose in the car as we were driving past a rather affluent neighborhood on the way to the grocery store...
  • Exegetical Notes (Luke 12:13-21)

    by Brian Stoffregen
    (always excellent exegesis)
  • American Dream

    song by Switchfoot
    ("When success is equated with excess The ambition for excess wrecks us As top of the mind becomes the bottom line When success is equated with excess...")((See video.)
  • Illustrations, Quotes and Lectionary Reflections (Ordinary 18C)

    by Various Authors
    ["An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, "Only a little while." The tourist then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?" The Mexican said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs..." and many others - lots of good stuff here - recommended!!)(most recent entries are at the bottom of the page]

Illustrated Resources from 2019 to 2021

  • What Will You Do if You Win the Lottery?

    by Rian Adams
    Last week I read an article related to sudden wealth. It was titled, “What notto do when you win the lottery.”It could have easily been titled after the rich man in our lesson: “When greed makes you stupid.” That article gave a few examples of people who, as Jesus said, tore down barns so they could build bigger ones. One story stood out to me more than the others. The story of Denise Rossi is as fascinating as it is compelling. Dear Denise won the lottery and decided that it was time to divorce her husband…. The next day. Oh, it gets better, buckle up. When she filed, she, “forgot to mention” the fact she was a newly minted millionaire. Denise must have been a fan of The Steve Miller Band, “Take the money and run.” …… And she ran… straight to the court house. She almost got away with it too. But those obnoxious asset disclosure laws interrupted her relocation to the islands on a private jet. During the divorce proceedings, her lawyers discovered her new fortune. Then, by a slip of the tongue, she said that her husband gave her money to buy the ticket… for him. The court awarded all the winnings to her husband!...
  • Families Go Deep in Debt to Stay in the Middle Class

    by AnnaMaria Andriotis, Ken Brown and Shane Shifflett
    The American middle class is falling deeper into debt to maintain a middle-class lifestyle. Cars, college, houses and medical care have become steadily more costly, but incomes have been largely stagnant for two decades, despite a recent uptick. Filling the gap between earning and spending is an explosion of finance into nearly every corner of the consumer economy. Consumer debt, not counting mortgages, has climbed to $4 trillion—higher than it has ever been even after adjusting for inflation. Mortgage debt slid after the financial crisis a decade ago but is rebounding. Student debt totaled about $1.5 trillion last year, exceeding all other forms of consumer debt except mortgages...
  • Frivolous versus Serious

    by Jim Chern
    A couple of months ago, this foundation called “the United States Chamber Institute for Legal Reform” published their top 10 list of “most ridiculous lawsuits in the world.” They weren’t kidding… that was a pretty “spot on” description of the bizarre compilation. The NY Post in reporting it, showed their hometown pride in pointing out that half of those cases came from the Empire State. Some examples included: -A class action law suit against the manufacturers of “Kind Bars.” They were sued for putting what, the plaintiff alleges were “chemical sounding terms like ascorbic acid” in it’s products. (FYI – Ascorbic acid is another name for Vitamin C). -A customer from Buffalo is suing Canada Dry Ginger Ale because the soda doesn’t contain real ginger (even though the ingredients are listed right on the can). -A man from Albany going after Star Kist Tuna because they have the logo from the American Heart Association on their cans. He’s claiming that the logo fools customers into thinking that Star Kist tuna is healthier than other brands. -(and my personal favorite from the list) Tootsie Roll Industries are the defendants of a case where they are said to have cheated their customers. How? They short change the number of Junior mints that could be found in a box of the famous candy because the box is “half-filled with air.” The company pointed out that the number of mints is actually listed right on the box, and the Judge had dismissed the case saying she could not allow the suit to proceed and “enshrine into law an embarrassing level of mathematical illiteracy.” The plaintiffs disagree and have appealed that ruling...
  • This Novel About Ridiculously Rich People Offers No Simple Lessons

    by Lillian Daniel
    Frances Price is a ridiculously rich widow, so bored with life on Manhattan’s elite East Side that she creates her own financial crash by spending everything she has. When her financial adviser finally tells her that her worldly goods and homes are being repossessed, she seems relieved to withdraw all the cash she has left, which amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s a massive amount to most readers, but it’s small change to Frances, the unforgettable antiheroine of French Exit...
  • Sermon Starters (Proper 13C)(2019)

    by Scott Hoezee
    A couple from the Midwest was visiting New York during a cold stretch of the month of January. As they walked up Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, a bitterly cold wind came up, causing the woman’s ears to get painfully cold. They decided to duck into a boutique to purchase a hat for her. The woman rather quickly found a lovely cashmere knit hat and was about to buy it when her husband noticed the price tag dangling from the cap: $350. They put it back and quickly fled the store. As they came back out onto the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue, however, they saw a woman passing by carrying her little poodle dog–and the dog was wearing that very cashmere knit hat!
  • Ordinary 18C (2019)

    by Cynthia Briggs Kittredge
    The late comedian George Carlin had a reputation for profanity, but his stand-up performances were also characterized by brilliant social satire and an acute sense of the power of language to create and to distort reality. Humor, exaggeration, and mockery work together as a contemporary technique—as well as an ancient one—for insight and moral instruction. In one monologue, Carlin depicts the obsessive accumulation of material things, and the modern anxiety for which it is both the cause and the result: You got your stuff with you? I’ll bet you do. Guys have stuff in their pockets; women have stuff in their purses. . . . Stuff is important. You gotta take care of your stuff. You gotta have a place for your stuff. That’s what life is all about, tryin’ to find a place for your stuff! That’s all your house is; a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you ­wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time.So now you got a houseful of stuff. And, even though you might like your house, you gotta move. Gotta get a bigger house. Why? Too much stuff! And that means you gotta move all your stuff. Or maybe, put some of your stuff in storage. Storage! Imagine that. There’s a whole industry based on keepin’ an eye on other people’s stuff.
  • Sermon Illustrations (Proper 13C)(2019)

    from Lectionaid
    Do You Love Your Stuff Too Much? Maybe It’s Because No One Loves You) But it’s not loneliness alone that plays a role in the need to embrace stuff. One’s need to control also seems to be a factor: Because material objects are not sentient beings, without consciousness and free will, such objects offer consumers relatively predictable and controllable—albeit one-sided—relationships. Therefore, those exhibiting this trait seem more susceptible to possession love. However you fall in love with a possession, the result is often that caring for that possession winds up costing the owner plenty in terms of time and money: We found possession love driving nurturing, meaning consumers giving of their time, energy, and other resources to foster their beloved possessions and their relationships with such possessions. Nurturing is accomplished, in part, by buying complementary products and services, in deference to the beloved; thus, the assortment of products and services nurturing beloved possessions represents substantial revenue opportunities for marketers. The takeaway is that coping with loneliness sure can be expensive...
  • A Love Stronger Than Stuff

    by Jen Nagel
    During Sukkot, many in the Jewish community will build a Sukkah. It’s “a fragile hut with a leafy roof, the most vulnerable of houses.” As Rabbi Arthur Waskow says, It’s “vulnerable in time, since it lasts for only a week each year. Vulnerable in space, since its roof must be not only leafy but leaky enough to let in the starlight and the gusts of wind and rain.” There’s a Jewish evening prayer that pleads, “Spread over us Your sukkah of shalom—of peace and safety.” In that prayer they don’t ask for a temple or a fortress or even a barn with plenty of storage, but rather a sukkah, because a sukkah is vulnerable. Our wisdom, our wealth, rests in this truth: we’re all vulnerable, life is vulnerable. The writer of Ecclesiastes knew that, so long ago. And Jesus, too. And, yes, even George Carlin. We’re vulnerable, El Paso, Dayton, they remind us of our vulnerability, but so does life.
  • Greed (Which Is Idolatry)

    by Michael Ruffin
    There’s a scene in the 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life in which George Bailey asks Clarence the angel if he has any money. Clarence says, “No, we don’t use money in heaven.” George replies, “Well, it comes in real handy down here, bud!” We wouldn’t argue the point. We need money. We need enough money to cover our expenses. We need to be able to put food on our table, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our heads. We need enough. But what would we do if we suddenly had more than enough? How would we respond if we experienced a financial windfall? There’s a scene in the 1994 film Forrest Gump in which Forrest opens an envelope with the Apple Computers logo on it. Lieutenant Dan had invested some of the money from their Bubba Gump shrimp business in “some kind of fruit company.” Forrest says that one day he got a call from Lieutenant Dan telling him they’d never have to worry about money again. “That’s good,” Forrest says. “One less thing.”...
  • The World Is Not Enough

    Sermon Starter by Leonard Sweet
    We are all familiar with the television show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Well USA Today recently said the answer is: "Everybody." In an article entitled, "Everyone wants a shot at being a millionaire," I found out that we are a country drowning in millionaires.[1] The estimate is there are now close to 15 million Americans with assets of $1 million or more [2]; while just ten years ago there were fewer than half that number. Billionaires are multiplying even faster. In 1983 Forbes counted 13 American billionaires; today there are 607.[3] Never before in the history of this country has so much money been made so quickly by so many people...

Illustrated Resources from 2016 to 2018

  • The Rich Fool and Saint Francis

    by Dan Clendenin
    Saint Hesychios of the eighth century put it this way: "He who has renounced such things as marriage, possessions and other worldly pursuits is outwardly a monk, but may not yet be a monk inwardly. Only he who has renounced the impassioned thoughts of his inner self, which is the intellect, is a true monk. It is easy to be a monk in one's outer self if one wants to be; but no small struggle is required to be a monk in one's inner self."
  • Bigger Barns

    by Owen Griffiths
    In a 1955 letter to an American friend C.S. Lewis wrote: “For it is a dreadful truth that the state of…’having to depend solely on God’ is what we all dread most. And of course that just shows how very much, how almost exclusively, we have been depending on things. But trouble goes so far back in our lives and is now so deeply ingrained, we will not turn to Him as long as He leaves us anything else to turn to.”
  • Being Rich Toward God

    by Janet Hunt
    If I am remembering right, I had coached the high school youth through some kind of worship experience where they dressed up as clowns --- complete with clown white make up and grease paint. (This was at least familiar to me.) We had been in the nave for this experience. The carpet around the altar was white. And as you can well imagine, by the end of our sharing, at least one spot on that carpet was not as white as it had been only hours before. This is what stays with me now: the sight of my normally dignified and calm pastor on his knees frantically trying to get red grease paint to let go of its hold on that formerly pristine white carpet
  • If I Am What I Have and I Lose What I Have, Who Then Am I?

    by Rex Hunt
    In Jesus’ day, greed was seen as particularly vicious in light of their experience of limited good. Catholic biblical scholar, Barbara Reid notes: “…there is only a limited amount of any good thing... Anything that one acquires is someone else's loss. Contrary to [our] capitalistic notions that all can increase in wealth, in first-century Palestine the… assumption is that everything is finite and cannot be expanded. If someone's share gets larger, someone else's decreases. Desiring more for oneself was the most insidious of vices, and was utterly destructive of village solidarity"...
  • Kingdom Conciousness

    by Terrance Klein
    This past Tuesday morning, the three kingdoms briefly aligned, in bitterness and in blessing. Christ’s kingdom found Father Jacques at Mass. Celebrating Eucharist is an act of kingdom consciousness, a living within the whither. It is essential to the Christian way of life. When we revel in the Word of God and the sacramental presence of Christ, the kingdom of God grows within us. From there, it break outs, into the world. In the world’s eyes we accomplish nothing at Eucharist, and we dare not try. Liturgy is a presence, not a program. Turn liturgy into pedagogy, and it quickly becomes little more than propaganda.
  • Why Not Build Another Barn?

    by Jim McCrea
    Phyllis Singer used to be a columnist for the Waterloo Courier. Some years ago, she told the following story in her column: “A wealthy businessman once offered $4,000 to anyone who could convincingly name four things which money could not buy. He was positive that no one would be able to meet the challenge. He smiled skeptically when one man took a pad and pencil, wrote four short lines and passed the note to him.
    “He glanced at it, then gave it a more studied look. ‘Without a word, he got out his checkbook and made good on his promise. The list of the four things money could not buy read: 1. A baby’s smile; 2. Youth after it is gone; 3. The love of a good woman; 4. Entrance into heaven.’”
  • Seeing What's Not There

    by Linda McMillan
    One time there was a hermit named Ada. Ada wanted to move to a new cave, so she packed up her meager belongings and left her old cave to begin looking for a new one. The first cave she looked at was too small. Even a novice would feel confined in this cave, she thought. The second cave Ada looked at was too big. Even a bishop would get lost in here, she thought. Ada imagined that the third cave would be just right. Instead, she found that it was even worse than the others. The third cave was filled with gold. Ada turned her back on the gold and ran as fast as she could away from that cave. In the meantime, three robbers had been watching Ada from a distance...
  • This Very Night

    Art and Faith by Lynn Miller
    All of these are called vanitas* paintings as a reminder of the fleeting nature of life. Some of the paintings include in their arrangements - pointedly include - a skull. These types of vanitas paintings are called memento mori. The Latin phrase translated "remember you must die" is the phrase that was whispered in the ear of Roman generals as they processed through the streets of Rome after various victories. The reminder was intended to help them resist believing their own press.
  • Moving and Resting in God's Desire

    by Paul Nuechterlein
    This is a grove of Aspen trees. Does anyone know what distinguishes these trees? They do not propagate by seed but through the root system. In other words, a grove of Aspen trees are basically all one tree interconnected beneath the ground by the roots. There’s a forest in Utah, called the Pando Forest, which is considered to be the largest living single organism in the world. Above the ground they all appear to be thousands of trees. But below ground it is all one gigantic tree. Mimetic Theory says that a similar thing is true of human beings. We appear to be all discrete individuals, but on the subconscious — what we might call the spiritual — level we are very much interconnected...
  • Why Not Ask Him?

    by Larry Patten
    I recall a family in hospice struggling over a decision about their dying loved one. This person, with only months to live, was still alert and talkative. The family wanted to do the right things for him, but dreaded making wrong choices. Huddled at the rear of the house, voices low as the patient dozed in a rented hospital bed in the living room, they discussed (and discussed) options. I was their chaplain, visiting with a social worker. I wish the next words were mine, but just enough humility compels me to admit it was the social worker that gently wondered . . . Why not ask him?
  • Struggling with Grandiosity

    by Ron Rolheiser, OMI
    Several years ago, Robert L. Moore wrote a very significant book entitled, Facing the Dragon. The dragon that most threatens us, he believes, is the dragon of our own grandiosity, that sense inside us that has us believe that we are singularly special and destined for greatness. This condition besets us all. Simply put, each of us, all seven billion of us on this planet, cannot help but feel that we are the center of the universe. And, given that this is mostly unacknowledged and we are generally ill-equipped to deal with it, this makes for a scary situation. This isn’t a recipe for peace and harmony, but for jealousy and conflict...
  • Craving God's Love

    by Oscar Rozo
    One day a man said to God, ‘God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.’ God showed the man two doors. Inside the first one, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, ‘You have seen Hell.’
  • The Beginning of a Heavenly Sowing

    by Shannon Schaefer
    Soon I was told the story: the garden interns, knowing this planting of onions would soon rot in the ground, had pulled them all the day before. But the harvest they expected and the harvest they received were very different. Considering the yields from the prior year and what they’d already harvested, the garden director imagined they might pull a flat-bed trailer’s worth from the onion beds up at the nearby farm. Instead, they filled the trailer two and a half times, plus an enclosed pickup truck bed. It was an incredible number of onions!
  • Who Do You Love?

    by Leslie Scoopmire
    In one of my favorite movies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, there’s a pivotal scene involving Ferris’s friend Cameron finally venting the anger he feels at his parents for never placing their priorities upon him, their only child. Cameron looks upon his father’s prized possession, a highly expensive classic sports car that his father has painstakingly restored, and suddenly begins to kick the incredibly expensive shiny chrome fender, lashing out as he never could against his actual father, screaming “Who do you love? Who do you love? You love a car!” And he kicks it over and over again, until finally, it ends up accidentally being propelled out of the garage in which it sits with the motor running, and is destroyed.
  • Financial Foolishness

    Sermon Starter by Leonard Sweet
    For one reason or another, most people today are concerned about money. It is estimated that 40% of the marriages that fail are the result of conflict over finances. Colleges report that students are forsaking the study of Liberal Arts for courses in accounting, engineering, and business. Newspapers are devoting entire sections to the subject of money. People who just a few years ago were financially illiterate are now following with interest-no pun intended-rates on Certificates of deposit, Money Market accounts, etc. Young couples are being urged to sit down with a financial planner early in their marriage and map out a strategy for achieving their financial goals.

Illustrated Resources from 2013 to 2015

  • Proper 13C (2013)

    by Delmer Chilton
    "Comedian Jack Benny established a character who was famously tight and cheap. He had a routine in which he is held up by a robber demanding, 'Your money or your life'. Benny stands there, arms folded, fingers drumming his cheek, for several seconds. The robber demands again, 'I said your money or your life; well?' Benny puts his arms out in exasperation, 'I'm thinking, I'm thinking'..." and another quote
  • Watch Out for Greed! The Parable of the RIch Fool

    by Daniel Clendenin
    ("In his 1987 film Wall Street, director Oliver Stone created an icon of excess with the character Gordon Gekko. Gekko was a rapacious corporate raider played by Michael Douglas, who won an Oscar for best actor for his performance. Twenty-five years later people still remember Gekko's address to the Teldar Paper stockholders..:")
  • Generosity as a Way of Life

    by Alberto Cutié
    ("I recall a missionary priest from one of the poorest regions in Central America who would visit South Florida twice a year to fill huge containers with everything our community in Miami wanted to throw out--everything one could imagine from old clothes to outdated and mostly broken electronics...")
  • Learning to Dive

    by Terrance Klein
    ("When I was a kid, summer mornings for me meant riding my bike across town, about a mile, for swimming lessons at the city pool. In the morning, it wasn't open to the general public. The sun hadn't yet warmed the water. We were there for serious business. Lifeguards were teaching us to swim and to dive. To dive! That was the challenge. Older kids knew how to dive. They spent their time on the diving boards...")
  • Super-Sized!

    by Lee Koontz
    ("A few years ago, an article entitled 'We Don't Need Another Superhero' appeared in the Wall Street Journal, and in it media critic James Bowman noted the flood of superhero movies that have been released since September 11, 2001. In the decade following that horrible day there were nearly fifty movies about superheroes in our theaters, with more in the works..." and other quotes)
  • What Money Can and Can't Do

    by David Lose
    "It's kind of like I have two sound tracks running in my head. My stated beliefs are represented by the Beatles, Can't Buy Me Love. You remember: 'I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend if it makes you feel alright I'll get you anything my friend if it makes you feel alright 'Cause I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love.'..."
  • Ordinary 18C (2013)

    by Alex McAllister
    ("the Founder of our Order, Father Francis Jordan, placed great trust in Divine Providence. He took extraordinary risks when he was apparently without sufficient material or personnel resources and yet somehow or other the Lord provided. There is a famous example of how a debt was suddenly able to be paid. It was his custom to write the things he most needed on small slips of paper and place them in the hands of the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes which sat on his desk..."
  • Profit Tables and the Prophet's Table

    by Nathan Nettleton
    I once read a newspaper story about a doctor, a cancer specialist, who had quit after 23 years working in Victoria’s public hospital system. As the paper said, Dr Vaughan was the sort of doctor the system needs. Even after treating more than 7000 public patients, it was obvious he still cared. Listen to his words: “Sometimes caring means sitting at the side of a dying patient for 20 minutes, not talking, not doing, just being a presence.” This was a doctor who still wanted to listen to patients and understand their needs - rather than just shove them through but, he said, the changes to the public health system were mitigating against that. Caring seemed to have disappeared in a system that rewards those who shove patients through the fastest.
  • Wound and Harbor

    by Larry Patten
    ("In 1975's Jaws, I enjoyed the scene where Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw's characters compared scars. As they one-upped each other with horrific tales of danger from knives and fangs and worse, they and the viewer grew closer. Wounds are stories. A few years ago I attempted to heal an unseen wound. I tried to manipulate my father into telling me that he loved me. It didn't work. I understand . . . and yet not....")
  • Wealth, Creation and Human Dignity

    by Matthew A. Shadle
    "Jacques Maritain was a guiding force in the creation of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1945, and perhaps the most important intellectual influence on Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris, to which Meghan Clark rightly appeals as a touchstone for the Catholic conception of rights..."
  • The Dirt on Jesus

    Sermon Starter by Leonard Sweet
    ["The late comedian George Carlin famously did an entire monologue on 'stuff' - proclaiming that the 'meaning of life is trying to find a place to put your stuff' and that 'A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff'. That sounds like a pretty good description of houses that empty out at 5 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving..."]

Illustrated Resources from 2010 to 2012

  • This Very Night

    by Phil Bloom
    ("On February 3, 1943, as they crossed the North Atlantic Ocean, a torpedo struck the Dorchester. The lights went out; in panic, the soldiers scrambled from their beds to the main deck. Only a few of the lifeboats worked and as the shipped listed, some fell into the ice water. One of the survivors told about landing in the water near the ship...")
  • Missing Life

    by Denis Hanly, MM
    I remember my father. My father worked on Wall Street in an odd-lot house for a pittance of a salary for maybe forty years. And, at the end of it, I asked him all about stocks. I said, “Did you ever buy any stocks?” “Oh no,” he said. “Forty years of Wall Street cured me. Never buy stocks.” And I said, “Well, that seems kind of strange, because, tell me, do you know how to make money on the stock market?” He said, “Oh yes, I can tell you that. You get a stock when it’s low. You buy it and then, when it gets high, you sell it. And then you become a millionaire.” And then I said, “Well, how do I know when it’s going to go up and when it’s going to go down?” And he said, “Well, that’s the trick isn’t it. Probably we’ll never know and therefore it’s going to be a risk.” So I said, “Well, why not take the risk?” He said, “Well, it’d be like your two aunties.” And I said, “Is that bad?” He said, “Well, they get up in the morning and they have to look in the paper or hear on the radio whether their stock is going up or whether it’s going down, or up or down, or up or down, and, day after day, it’s up and down, up and down. Their whole life is passing them by and they get to be old and they don’t even realise what they missed.”...
  • Proper 13C (2010)

    by Scott Hoezee
    ("One of my favorite parts of The New York Times is the section titled 'Metropolitan Diary'. Each Monday this column features six to eight brief letters sent in by readers who relate real-life experiences in the Big Apple. Many of these anecdotes are examples of kindness and warmth in the midst of a city reputed to be cold and uncaring...")
  • Soul Investment

    by Kate Huey
    (includes several quotes)
  • If I Am What I Have and I Lose What I Have, Who Then Am I?

    by Rex Hunt
    ("A major metropolitan newspaper in Melbourne in December 2008 devoted its front page to a story of a visiting American celebrity, of no known accomplishment apart from an ability to attract the media, to report that she spent $5,000 plus on clothes in a shopping spree. The incident is a dismaying illustration of how we have been increasing led to believe that the sum of who we are is expressed in being a consumer...")
  • Setting Our Priorities

    by Jim McCrea
    ("Hotel mogul Leona Helmsley, now a billionairess, sued to get the bulk of her late son's estate. That left his kids with less than $500 each. Isn't there a name for someone like that? And here I'll update Mr. Stossel just long enough to note that she apparently loved her dog more than she did her own grandchildren since she left the dog $12 million in her will..." and other illustrations)
  • Proper 13C (2010)

    by Robert Morrison
    ("Last night two friends and I were hiking along a creek, when up ahead on the left were Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy singing (the song) 'Something Stupid'. My friends were pretty excited and ran ahead to listen and tell the Sinatras how awesome it was...")
  • A Little Greed Goes a Long Way

    by Fran Ota
    ("When I was in Japan this summer, a huge scandal broke around the sport of sumo. Now, the origins of sumo are religious; the ring is considered holy ground, and those who participate in the sport, are supposed to be above reproach in everything they do. Some of them however, got greedy. They got involved with mafia middlemen, and began betting on baseball - heavily - and ran up huge debts...")
  • Prayer with an Infallible Guarantee

    by Ron Rolheiser, OMI
    ("'Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor!' That's an axiom attributed to James Forbes, the pastor of Riverside Church in New York City. He's right. If Jesus is to be believed, then we need to believe that the poor stand before us always as that place where we are judged...")
  • The Real Real Estate

    Sermon Starter by Leonard Sweet
    ["Sadly, until later in the twentieth century, the chances of children losing their mothers and being raised by stepmothers was common. The overwhelming threat to a woman's life was childbirth, especially if any sort of infection set in after delivery. For example, John Milton's first two wives, Mary Powell and Katherine Woodcock, both died in childbirth...."]

Illustrated Resources from 2007 to 2009

  • Proper 13C (2007)

    from the Center for Excellence in Preaching
    ("One of my favorite parts of The New York Times is the section titled 'Metropolitan Diary'. Each Monday this column features six to eight brief letters sent in by readers who relate real-life experiences in the Big Apple. Many of these anecdotes are examples of kindness and warmth in the midst of a city reputed to be cold and uncaring...")
  • Works

    by Lane Denson
    ("Today is the birthday of Mother Teresa, born in the city of Skopje, Macedonia (1910). Her father was murdered when she was seven, and her family fell into poverty....")
  • Be So Heavenly Minded You Are of Earthy Use

    by Jill Friebel
    ("There was a woman who wanted peace in the world and peace in her heart and all sorts of good things, but she was very frustrated. The world seemed to be falling apart. She would read the papers and get depressed. One day she decided to go shopping, and she went into a mall and picked a store at random. She walked in and was surprised to see Jesus behind the counter...")
  • Ordinary 18C (2007)

    by Andrew Greeley
    ("Once upon a time there was a daddy who had made a lot of money in the stock market. For every dollar he had invested in 1994, he now had ten dollars. Starting with a rather modest amount of money, he had become a millionaire...")
  • When Your Eye is on Your Portfolio, Take a Look at the Lilies

    by Fred Kane
    ("Sometimes I can identify with Henry Adams: 'He saw before him a world so changed as to be beyond connection with the past. His identity, if one could call a bundle of disconnected memories an identity, seemed to remain; but his life was once more broken into separate pieces...")
  • Ordinary 18C (2007)

    by Paul Larsen
    ("In his book When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough, Rabbi Harold Kushner tells of seeing a little boy and a little girl building an elaborate sand castle at the beach. When they had nearly finished, a big wave reduced it to a heap of wet sand...." and another illustration)
  • Then How Do We Live?

    by Sam Matthews
    ("The Wall Street Journal reported recently on a survey from the World Health Organization and the Harvard Medical School indicating that we in the United States are the most depressed people in the world!...")
  • Ordinary 18C (2007)

    by Paul O'Reilly, SJ
    ("And then, all of a sudden, one of our cousins won the lottery. And he won four hundred pounds. In that time, and in that place that was a lot of money ­ it was the equivalent of a year's income; perhaps in today's money it would be like a ten thousand pounds...")
  • Being Rich Toward God

    by Michael Phillips
    ("I recalled a time from my youth the other day, when I was a farm hand in Indiana. I drove a disk behind the plow to smooth out the fields for planting, and helped to care for some of the stock. The farmer was a friend of mine, and one day, we went to pick up some paint from another farm to do the inside trim on his house...")
  • This Is Our Story

    by Alex Thomas
    ("In the comic strip For Better or For Worse, there is a conversation between April and her father....")
  • Proper 13C (2007)

    by J. Barry Vaughn
    ("Many years ago, renegade Baptist minister and all-round troublemaker, Clarence Jordan, rendered the gospels into the idiom of the modern South...")
  • But I Need It!

    by Keith Wagner
    ("Hattie Mae Wyatt was a little girl who came to the Temple Baptist Sunday school in Philadelphia. But the building was crowded and someone carelessly told her, 'There’s no room for you'. She returned home and subsequently became ill and died. A well worn, lumpy purse was found under her pillow. It contained fifty-seven pennies and a scrap of paper...")

Illustrated Resources from the Archives

  • The Parable of the Rich Fool

    by Mark Adams
    ("Sigmund Freud once told the story of a sailor who was shipwrecked on one of the South Sea islands. When the natives found him they lifted him to their shoulders and marched triumphantly into their village. The sailor feared that he was to be their main dish for dinner that night. But to his astonishment they put him on a throne, put a crown on his head, and proclaimed him as their king....")
  • Conversations with God

    by Bob Allred
    ("A friend of mine inherited many millions. He had a lucrative law practice but now felt silly going to work. He prayed about what to do and in his conversation with God he decided that he would work less but work pro-bono. He began to experience a great sense of blessing and was able to truly matter for the first time in his life...")
  • Rich Toward God

    by Bob Allred
    ("You may have heard about the rich man that was terminally ill and asked his wife to come to the bedside one last time. 'Dear, you are still a lovely woman and I know that you will remarry and that your new husband will want to live in our mansion, and he will want to wear my fine clothes and drive my Rolls Royce...")
  • Your Money or Your Life!

    by Mickey Anders
    ("A couple of years ago ABC news presented a special on greed with reporter John Stossel. The program began with a look at the Biltmore estate in North Carolina. Stossel pointed out the house is gargantuan - 250 rooms. Yet it was all built for just one man to live in. The dining room is as high as a five-story building. The dining table seats 64...")
  • Possessed by a Thing

    by Michael Battle
    ("Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs..." and another quote)
  • Illustrations (Luke 12: 13-24)

    from Biblical Studies
  • Only the Light-Hearted

    by Colin Carr, OP
    ("A young Filipino fisherman was relaxing on the beach. He had caught enough fish in the early morning for his needs, including a modest income. A man from a North Atlantic country asked him why he wasn't out fishing, and he explained that he'd done enough. NA man said, 'But if you fished all day you'd make lots more money; you'd be able to buy another boat.'...")
  • Fred and God

    by Allison Cline
    ("Let me tell you a story about a gentleman I'll call Fred. He came to the Manor several years ago and was an angry gentleman. He had been living on his own in an apartment elsewhere in Northern Ontario but his doctor said he couldn't remain on his own due to several health factors...")
  • How Will We Be Remembered?

    by Allison Cline
    ("When Bayden was about two years old, I had taken him to a neighbour's home with me. He was playing outside while I was exchanging legal papers with the secretary from the Sudbury office. The little person with whom Bayden was playing came inside and when asked where Bayden was, she said he went home, she thought...)
  • A Right Focus

    by Tom Cox
    ("Notice in parish newsletter 'Lost a black leather wallet containing precious family photos, personal ID documents and eight hundred seventy-five Euro in cash. Finder can keep the photos and ID, but please return the cash for sentimental reasons...")
  • When More Is Less

    by Tom Cox
    ("If you have food in the fridge, adequate clothing and shelter. You are richer than 75% of the world. If you have spare money..you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. If you can worship freely, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world. If you have never known battle, imprisonment, torture, starvation - you are ahead of 500 million people in the world...")
  • Payday Someday

    by Louie Crew
    ("When I was in the third or fourth grade in a small town in Alabama, one Friday night my father handed me his watch with a second hand, turned out the lights, and told me to time how long it would take our neighbors the Whites to shut and lock every window in their house...")
  • Misers

    from Daily Walk
    ("John G. Wendel and his sisters were some of the most miserly people of all time. Although they had received a huge inheritance from their parents, they spent very little of it and did all they could to keep their wealth for themselves. John was able to influence five of his six sisters never to marry, and they lived in the same house in New York City for 50 years...")
  • Stepping Stones Towards Eternity

    by James Farfaglia
    "Tom Monaghan's father died on Christmas Eve when he was only four years old. Tom's mother could not support his brother Jim and himself on her salary of only $27.50 a week so she decided to put the two brothers into a foster home. After many years of hard work, in 1960, Tom and his brother Jim borrowed $900 to buy a pizzeria named Dominick's in Ypsilanti, Michigan..."
  • Being Rich

    by Frank Fisher
    ("One could say, she was very rich. Yes one could say she was very rich indeed. Her gifts were great. From the very moment of her birth her intelligence, and tenacity were quite evident. As she grew, she became in succession, ruler of her nursery school, monarch of day care, student council chair person, and valedictorian of both her high school, and her college classes...")
  • God's Promises

    by Eric Folkerth
    ("In Kahlil Gibran's book The Prophet, the ploughman says this about work: 'You work that you might keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission toward the infinite..." and other illustrations)
  • Proper 14C (1998)

    by Carol Joy Gallagher
    ("Recently, I heard the story of a older woman who, over the course of her life, had accumulated a large number of quilts. She had about 25 quilts, most of which had been handed down to her through her husband's and her own family. A few of the quilts she had made herself. She was a widow who had never had much money and had always lived her life simply....")
  • Fake Rabbits

    by Vince Gerhardy
    ("When I say that of all the animals in the world the greyhound is to be pitied the most, this is because of the races they have. They chase something they can never catch. Unlike most other dogs, when they chase a cat or a rabbit, they have a good chance of catching it...")
  • Proper 13C (2004)

    by Roger Haugen
    ("The documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 is causing quite a stir in the theatres and political arenas these days. Michael Moore has produced the documentary to try and explain why and how the tragedy of September 11, 2001 occurred. In it he documents the business connections between the oil interests of the United States and the Saudis and particularly the Bin Laden family...")
  • What's In Store?

    by Mark Haverland
    ("Sir Earnest Schakelton led an ill fated expedition to Antarctica in 1914. He thought he would make a trek across the Antarctic continent and be back in England a year later. Instead, his ship got marooned in the ice pack and he spent nearly 20 months stranded in fierce polar climate, precarious ice infested ocean, and harsh landscape...)
  • Avarice: The Disease and Its Cure

    by Charles Hoffacker
    ("In her book The Overspent American, Juliet Schor offers some memorable survey results. A considerable portion of the population agree with these two statements: 'I cannot afford to buy everything I really need' and 'I spend all of my money on the basic necessities of life'...")
  • Beating Inflation, God's Way

    by John Jewell
    "There is a revealing exchange in Ernest Hemingway's A Clean, Well Lighted Place where two waiters are discussing an older man. 'Last week he tried to commit suicide,' one waiter said. 'Why?' Asked the second waiter. 'He was in despair.' 'What about?' 'Nothing.' 'How do you know it was nothing?' 'He has plenty of money.'..."
  • Then What?

    by John Jewell
    ("Have you ever had the experience of having so much money you didn't know what to do with it? I have, and I want to tell you it can totally wreck your peace of mind and dominate your thoughts and behavior. I was just about 10 years old when I did a shameful and stupid thing. Shameful, because I went sneaking into my mom's purse and stole a dollar early one morning before school..." and another illustration)
  • Overlooking Saipan

    by James Kegel
    "Harley Swiggum told us how at the end of World War II he and a few other Navy personnel were assigned to the island of Saipan in the western Pacific. The island had been secured and there was really nothing for him to do there. He said his task was to clean the heads in camp—and apparently won a citation for the cleanest bathrooms on the island..."
  • Greed Kills, Giving Gives Life

    by Paul Larsen
    ("A New York Times article from January, 1998 tells about a woman suing her son after they/he won the New Jersey lottery in October of 1997. Apparently, for 10 years mother and son had pooled $20 each to buy chances at the lottery. When they got a winning ticket, the son claimed he bought it with his own money...")
  • A Fool and His Money

    by David Leininger
    ("Do you remembering seeing (or hearing about) that wonderful program on Public Television last year called Affluenza? As it opened we saw a patient in a doctor's office. She whined, 'I feel so awful, so bloated,' and the doctor told her, 'I'm afraid you're suffering from... Affluenza.'..." and other illustrations)
  • It's Not the Money

    by David Leininger
    "After all, we are the ones who watched Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street proclaim 'Greed is good'. Do you remember that? Michael Douglas was playing the infamous Gordon Gecko. The Gecko character was a composite of the Ivan Boeskys and Michael Milkins of the world, the embodiment of avarice gone amuck..."
  • Barns and Bigger Barns

    by Edward Markquart
    ("I love the following quotation from Danker's book Jesus and the New Age on this text. 'In 1923, a group of the world’s most successful men met at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. Assembled there were: the president of the largest steel corporation in America; the greatest wheat speculator; a man who was to be president of the New York Stock Exchange...")
  • The Worst Sin Ever

    by David Martyn
    ("I was taught to be a racist. My father who survived being in a prisoner of war camp in Germany taught me to hate Germans. Fifteen years ago my grandfather died and with him the family secret. He was not Dutch, but German. You see during the First and Second World Wars, you could not get a job if you were German, so my Grandfather lied-to his neighbours, to his children, to himself. And suddenly I found out that I was one of those I was taught to hate...")
  • Setting Our Priorities

    by Jim McCrea
    ("Some time ago, ABC News ran a special report on greed by John Stossel. There was a scene in that special in which Stossel was shown surrounded by the opulence of the Vanderbilt mansion as he pondered the meaning of it all. He said: 'I think of greed as wanting too much, more than you need, wretched excess. By that definition, the Vanderbilt mansion is a monument to greed...")
  • The Rich Fool

    by Philip McLarty
    ("In his book, Faith Quakes, Leonard Sweet tells of the owner of a West Virginia country store who refused to stock what the salesman claimed was the hottest, best-selling fad. The store owner told him, 'Mister, in this part of the country every want ain't necessarily a need'....")
  • The Key

    from Moody's Anecdotes
    ("An English clergyman was called to the death-bed of a wealthy parishioner. Kneeling beside the dying man the pastor asked him to take his hand as he prayed for his upholding in that solemn hour, but he declined to give it...")
  • Profit Tables and the Prophet's Table

    by Nathan Nettleton
    ("Dr Stephen Vaughan is a cancer specialist who has just quit after 23 years working in Victoria's public hospital system. As the paper said, Dr Vaughan is the sort of doctor the system needs. Even after treating more than 7000 public patients, it is obvious he still cares...")
  • Paradise Lost...and Reopened

    by Paul Nuechterlein
    ("What is Paradise? We are quite familiar with the word, but what is it? Is it the same as heaven? Where is it? Is it a far-away place? A place on the other side of death? What is Paradise? This week I think that a lot of people might have answered that question, 'Paradise is winning a $295 million Powerball lottery.'...")
  • Illustration (Luke 12:15)

    from Our Daily Bread
    ("Philip Parham tells the story of a rich industrialist who was disturbed to find a fisherman sitting lazily beside his boat. 'Why aren’t you out there fishing?' he asked. 'Because I’ve caught enough fish for today,' said the fisherman...")
  • Proper 13C (2004)

    by Joseph Parrish
    ("The Municipal Credit Union of New York City, a credit union serving some 30,000 federal, state, and city government employees, lost its computer link with the New York Cash Exchange during the September 11th attacks...")
  • When Enough Isn't Nearly Enough

    by John Pavelko
    ("Leo Tolstoy once wrote the following story: 'Pahom lived in a small village and managed a small farm. Through his hard work and a good harvest, the farm provided enough food to feed his family. One day he heard that a landowner of a large estate was selling her property. He decided to buy forty acres of her property...)
  • The Antidote of Fear

    by Gerry Pierse, CSsR
    ("According to an old story a successful businessman went to the monastery and met the Brother Porter. 'I have come,' he said, 'to visit your master. We were classmates as children. I have done well in the world and have come to share something with my old classmate and help him to enjoy life...")
  • Laying Up Ample Goods

    by Stephen Portner
    ("From Monday through Thursday this last week, I have taken part of our Conference's School of Christian Mission. When I started the course, Indonesia meant little more to me than a group of islands located on the opposite side of the globe where I lived. What could their socio-economic situation have to do with me? According to the book we read, Indonesia in Shadow and Light by John Campbell-Nelson, the answer is, 'Quite a bit'....)
  • Re-evaluating Wealth

    by David Prince
    ("We understand what Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince learned in his conversation with the fox. The fox said, 'It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.' 'What is essential is invisible to the eye,' the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember...")
  • All That You Have Is Your Soul

    by Beth Quick
    ("Recently, I came across a song, written by musician Tracy Chapman, and it is entitled All that you have is your soul: 'oh, my momma told me that she said she learned the hard way. She wants to spare the children. Don't ever give or sell your soul away cause all that you have is your soul...")
  • Bigger and Better

    by Beth Quick
    ("Horatio Spafford had suffered many loses in his life. Spafford was a lawyer, but enjoyed friendships with many Christian evangelists like Dwight L. Moody. He and his wife had already lost their only son, and in 1871 his troubles increase: His recent real estate investments were a financial wipeout in the great Chicago fire of 1871...")
  • Your Money or Your Life

    by Beth Quick
    ("While staying with my host family in Ghana this summer, I used an empty shopping bag to take care of the trash I accumulated during the week. By the end of my stay it was filled with wrappers from snacks I had brought with me, used wet-ones that came in little travel packs, empty travel-sized shampoo bottles, and scrap paper that I didn't need...")
  • Eat, Drink and Be Merry

    by John Ewing Roberts
    ("An old hermit stumbled into a cave in which he found an enormous hidden treasure. As he left the cave, he saw three men and started to run, hoping to lead them away from the hidden treasure. But the three men were curious; why would an old hermit run from them?..." and several other illustrations - recommended!!)
  • Mine!

    by Barry Robinson
    ("As Bernard Brandon Scott points out in his book Here Then The Parable, this is not one of Jesus' more radical parables. This is not one of Jesus' more radical parables. It is a parable that builds heavily on a tradition that had been with Israel for many generations, a tradition which taught that the land (meaning everything) belongs to God and must be managed for all...")
  • Living the Good Life

    by Gary Roth
    "Once upon a time, there was a boy who wanted a car. It wasn’t just any car. It was a sports car. And it wasn’t just any sports car – it was a Ferarri. He had seen a picture of it in a magazine, and at once fell in love with it, and determined that it was the car he wanted. As he grew up, he dreamt about it. It would be fire-engine red, with black leather seats..."
  • On Stuff

    by Mark Sargent
    ("Listen to what George Carlin says about stuff: 'That's all your house is-a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it, and when you leave your house, you've got to lock it up. You wouldn't want to somebody to come by and take some of your stuff...")
  • Bigger Isn't Always Better

    by Billy D. Strayhorn
    ("A number of years ago I read about a man who had the bigger house, the bigger car, the bigger bank account, the bigger job. He spent a great deal of time at the office with the demands of his large school and the promises of even larger responsibilities. Frank could have easily risen to an even more prestigious and high paying administrative position...")
  • Rich Toward God

    by Alex Thomas
    ("Marcus J. Borg in his book The Heart Of Christianity talks about the three main values that our culture seems to be obsessed with. He calls them the three A's: Affluence, Attractiveness, and Achievement. I believe that another way of putting this would be that we are influenced heavily by the me generation, the consumer mentality, and the desire for power, control and status..." and other illustrations)
  • Rich Toward God (#2)

    by Alex Thomas
    ("There was a teacher, we'll call her Miss Thompson. You know what a lot of teachers say at the beginning of the year: 'I love you all. You are all important to me. I have no favorites'. Teachers lie sometimes. Of course they have favorites. Some of their students they just don't like. Teddy Stollard was one of those students that Miss Thompson did not care for...")
  • Bankruptcy of the Soul

    by Keith Wagner
    "In July 1846, Margaret Reed reluctantly left her beloved home in Springfield, Illinois, with her husband James, their four children, and her ailing mother and set off for California. Margaret had stubbornly resisted her husband’s entreaties to move for months, begging him not to abandon the charmed life of comfort and culture they enjoyed..."
  • Insuring Our Faith

    by Keith Wagner
    ("Silas Marner was a miser, a very ill-tempered miser at that. He lived for nothing but the hoarding of his money. As author George Eliot described him: 'So year after year, Silas Marner had lived in this solitude, his guineas rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more and more into a mere pulsation of desire and satisfaction that had no relation to any other being...")
  • The Right Stuff

    by Keith Wagner
    ("On one of the TV shows from Frazier, it was approaching Christmas and Frazier had decided to do his shopping via catalog. He had very carefully ordered the exact educational gifts he wanted for his son. He had arranged to receive his goods in plenty of time for Christmas. They came just in time. But when he opened the box he knew instantly it was the wrong stuff..." and another illustration)
  • Materialistic Slavery

    by Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson
    ("In his novel Perelandra, C.S. Lewis places an Adam-and-like couple in a world where they live on floating islands of vegetation. Sometimes the islands would break up in the waves. There are places in this world where solid land exists, but the couple are forbidden to remain there overnight..." and another quote from Victor Frankl)
  • We Fools

    by William Willimon
    "A friend’s grandfather was one of the founders of Woolworth’s Five and Dime. His grandfather’s great contribution, which revolutionized merchandising, was the bright idea to put merchandise out on tables for everyone to see. Before that invention, people entered a store and told a clerk what they wanted..."
  • A Lot of Junk

    by Lawrence Wood
    ("Here in the rural upper Midwest, it seems every other person has a pole barn. Usually it's full of old tires, old brakes, a trailer, dozens of tools gathering rust, coffee cans loaded with lug nuts and screws. Ed and Edna's place is pretty typical, I think. Her cupboards, bureaus, cabinets, garage, attic and spare bedroom have been crammed full of things that define her...")

Other Resources from 2019 to 2021

Other Resources from 2016 to 2018

Other Resources from 2013 to 2015

Other Resources from 2010 to 2012

Other Resources from 2007 to 2009

Other Resources from 2004 to 2006

Other Resources from the Archives

Children's Resources and Dramas

Recursos en Español

Currently Unavailable

  • Domingo 18

    por Joseph Madera, MSpS
  • Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart

    by Harold McNabb
    ("A teacher asked her students to list what they thought were the present Seven Wonders of the World....")
  • Contentment

    by Tim Zingale
  • Teaching Kids About Money

    by Jeremy Bellsmith
  • Proper 13C (2013)

    by Delmer Chilton
    ("Comedian Jack Benny established a character who was famously tight and cheap. He had a routine in which he is held up by a robber demanding, 'Your money or your life'. Benny stands there, arms folded, fingers drumming his cheek, for several seconds. The robber demands again, 'I said your money or your life; well?' Benny puts his arms out in exasperation, 'I'm thinking, I'm thinking'..." and another quote)
  • The Danger of Riches

    by Ron Rolheiser, OMI
    John Donahue, the biblical scholar, makes this point about that parable: “The rich man is condemned not because he is rich but because he never saw Lazarus at his gate: the first time he sees him is from Hades, emphasized by the somewhat solemn phrase, ‘He lifted up his eyes, and saw.’ Here the text is bitterly ironic. In life there was a chasm between himself and Lazarus because of wealth and power; in death this chasm still exists.” The real danger of wealth is that it causes a “blindness” that renders us incapable of seeing the poor...
  • Ordinary 18C (2004)

    by Richard Grady
  • Ordinary 18C

    by Robert Cole
    ("When you hear the word Greed, what image comes to your mind? For me, I think of Ebenezer Scrooge, the old miser in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I'm sure you've seen the movie. He was the old geezer whose only purpose was to make money...")
  • Parable of the Rich Fool

    Audio by Millard Fuller, founder and president of Habitat for Humanity International
  • Domingo 18C (2019)

    por Sindy Collazo
  • Inserto Para el Boletín

    por Sarah Johnson
  • Ordinary 18

    by Mark Leenane
  • Ordinary 18C (2016)

    by Susan Fleming McGurgan
  • Being Rich Toward God

    by Dave Risendal
  • Rich Toward God

    by Dave Risendal