Lk 12, 13-21 Take care to guard against all greed

(Lk 12, 13-21) Take care to guard against all greed

[13] Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me." [14] He replied to him, "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?" [15] Then he said to the crowd, "Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one's life does not consist of possessions." [16] Then he told them a parable. "There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. [17] He asked himself, 'What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?' [18] And he said, 'This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods [19] and I shall say to myself, "Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!" [20] But God said to him, 'You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?' [21] Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God."

(CCC 549) By freeing some individuals from the earthly evils of hunger, injustice, illness and death (Cf. Jn 6:5-15; Lk 19:8; Mt 11:5), Jesus performed messianic signs. Nevertheless he did not come to abolish all evils here below (Cf. Lk 12:13-14; Jn 18:36), but to free men from the gravest slavery, sin, which thwarts them in their vocation as God's sons and causes all forms of human bondage (Cf. Jn 8:34-36). (CCC 360) Because of its common origin the human race forms a unity; for "from one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth" (Acts 17:26; cf. Tob 8:6): O wondrous vision, which makes us contemplate the human race in the unity of its origin in God… in the unity of its nature, composed equally in all men of a material body and a spiritual soul; in the unity of its immediate end and its mission in the world; in the unity of its dwelling, the earth, whose benefits all men, by right of nature, may use to sustain and develop life; in the unity of its supernatural end: God himself, to whom all ought to tend; in the unity of the means for attaining this end;… in the unity of the redemption wrought by Christ for all (Pius XII, encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, 3; cf. NA 1). (CCC 361) "This law of human solidarity and charity" (Summi Pontificatus, 3), without excluding the rich variety of persons, cultures and peoples, assures us that all men are truly brethren. (CCC 1948) Solidarity is an eminently Christian virtue. It practices the sharing of spiritual goods even more than material ones. (CCC 1943) Society ensures social justice by providing the conditions that allow associations and individuals to obtain their due. (CCC 1944) Respect for the human person considers the other "another self." It presupposes respect for the fundamental rights that flow from the dignity intrinsic of the person. (CCC 1945) The equality of men concerns their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it. (CCC 1946) The differences among persons belong to God's plan, who wills that we should need one another. These differences should encourage charity. (CCC 1947) The equal dignity of human persons requires the effort to reduce excessive social and economic inequalities. It gives urgency to the elimination of sinful inequalities.