“Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” These words from Ecclesiastes echo across the centuries like a bell tolling in an empty cathedral, their truth as clear today as when first penned. They invite us to contemplate a truth that cuts to the heart of human existence: the greedier you are, the emptier you are.

Picture a man bent over his ledgers late into the night, candlelight flickering across columns of figures that grow ever longer. His barns are full to bursting, his fields stretch beyond the horizon, yet something gnaws at him—an emptiness that no amount of grain can fill. This is the portrait of a miser that St. Luke paints for us in the Parable of the Rich Fool.

This parable speaks to a deeper wound in the human condition—our desperate attempt to build permanence in a world of shadows. We are, as T.S. Eliot might say, “distracted from distraction by distraction.” But Jesus does not leave us with mere condemnation. His words point toward an alternative economy—being “rich in what matters to God.” This is not simply about charitable giving, though it is part of it. It’s about recognizing that we are stewards, not owners, of the Lord’s bounty.

What does it look like to be rich in what matters to God? It looks like the widow dropping her two coins into the temple treasury. It looks like Mary of Bethany “wasting” precious nard on Jesus’ feet. It looks like Francis of Assisi stripping naked in the town square to return even his clothes to his earthly father. It looks like the quiet fidelity of parents sacrificing for their children, workers serving with integrity, neighbors sharing with others from their abundance. The words of Scripture perform a great reversal, turning our world upside down—or more accurately right-side up. They invite us to see “security” as the greatest insecurity, and foolishness—trusting in God’s providence, as the loftiest protection.

The Parable of the Rich Fool urges us to resist the siren song of accumulation that deadens our souls. The promise: that in losing our lives, we find them; in giving away our treasures, we discover true wealth; in dying to self, we are raised to new life. “Prosper the work of our hands,” says the Psalmist, but how do we we understand this prosperity? Is it the prosperity gospel of wealthy televangelists? Is it the barn bursting with grain, or the mansions oozing with affluence? No. It is none of those material things. It resides in the hearts of those expanded by love.

At the end of our days, and that day will come, we will leave this world with nothing in our hands. The only question is whether our hearts will be full of the riches that moth cannot corrode nor rust consume nor death destroy. All things are passing, except the love of God and the souls touched by that love. This alone is the treasure worth storing. This alone is the prosperity that make us blessedly rich.

May we have the wisdom to know this, and the courage to live accordingly.

—Fr. Hugh Duffy, Ph.D.