Episode 91 - The Desire for Stuff

Here is a replay of Episode 27 - Always a great reminder when we find ourselves desiring something. We can get trapped in our desire for worldly possessions. St. Augustine has a great quote regarding this. Let's talk about it.

Transcript

Welcome to Catholic money talk, where we talk about all things money, and finance. And we try to do it through a lens of being Catholic, where our ultimate goal is to one day be in Heaven with the Lord. I am your host, Paul Scarfone. Thank you for being here today. So today, I want to talk about something that hit me in prayer the other day. And it was a quote from St. Augustine, and it really hit me, especially after having just come home, off a vacation. But before we do that, let's start with a prayer, and the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We ask You for all the grace and wisdom that we need to face the challenges or the circumstances that we find ourselves in. We know that you love us and that you have a great plan for us, allow us to yield to your Holy Spirit. We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. You know, it's funny, just yesterday, actually, I was talking to one of my clients, and they, they made a comment about how did they say it? I don't want to over spiritualize everything. That's what they said. And they were really talking about I don't want to over spiritualize like finances. And it got me to thinking a little bit, you know, too many times. I think we keep so many things separate. You know, as Catholics, we love to know what the Church says on everything and what we're allowed to do. We want to know, the yes and the knows the exact answer. And right. And of course, the Church teaches that we have to follow our well formed conscience like we have to make those decisions based on our reasoning, intellect, and what we've learned and what we've know, and what we study. And so many times, especially when it gets into some of these gray areas, we want to know, what does the church say I have to do this or I have to do that. Right? Does the church say I have to tie it, or I don't have to tie the five to tie this is on the gross or the net? One of my friends who teaches at a seminary says that the classic thing is, you know, to the young guy that says hey, Father, how far am I allowed to go with my girlfriend before? It's a sin? Right? And and, and that can spill into all the different areas of our life? Right? Like what what can we do? What can we not do? Is it sin to buy$100,000 car? Well, no, clearly it's not in in itself, but there could be other extenuating circumstances where we ought not to, right. And so when we talk about this over spiritualizing, of finances are other things. I don't think we really can over spiritualize it I mean, the spiritual life, that's the real life like our soul, that's what's gonna exist forever, in one of two places. Right? And so our time on Earth, we're able to spend it and say, Where do we want to spend our eternity? And everything I do, can impact that in a certain way. And so we don't have to over spiritualize like, if you go out to dinner, like prayerfully discern to order the steak, or do I order a salad with grilled chicken? No, you should have perfectly discerned your budget. So that you know, you've got 100 bucks to spend on date night with your spouse. And within that context, you can say what fits with that the steak or the salad with grilled chicken. Like we prayerfully discern the budget, we don't have to, like run to the Lord and every single little moment and being like, what do I do now? What do I do now? But I think having a spiritual lens on everything. It's not being overtly spiritual. It's, it's just being real and looking towards eternity saying, Where do I want to be? And so the evil one knows this, right? So the evil one wants to trip us up. And that's where the quote from St. Augustine hit me the other day, a couple of weeks ago. So I think was about two weeks ago. We had just gotten back from a week away in Chincoteague, Virginia. And it was a great time away as a family. The weather was perfect. We're blessed to have my father in law. Come join us for two nights. That was awesome. The kids had a blast. We had you know smores and a bonfire on the beach. It was great. Being on vacation with perfect weather, great scenery, fun activities, relaxing time. It definitely pulls on the heart to want to do more of this. So actually, a few days after we returned home, my five year old son said to me, Dad, can we just live in Chincoteague all the time. So clearly, he must have had a blast and as an adult. I was regularly bombarded with when we're there like it's so nice. It'd be so nice to have a home here. We wouldn't have to pack it's much cheaper than New Jersey beaches. If, if you've never been or don't know. Oh Chincoteague, Virginia. Chincoteague is an island on the Atlantic coast. It has kind of like a sister Island, a twin island that creates a barrier to the Atlantic Ocean. And that island that's called acetate, it's a national park. The barrier island it has no homes, no boardwalks, no bars, no restaurants. It just got miles and miles of natural sand beach and bays. It also has herds of wild ponies, tons of other wildlife. You can hike, swim, fish boat, it's perfect for families or anyone who wants to get you know, just get away from large crowds and noise. It's absolutely beautiful. The island of Chincoteague, it's just a short seven minute drive over the little bridge from Assa T. You can rent mopeds, scooters, golf carts for traveling all over Chincoteague. There's beautiful sunsets, family restaurants, awesome ice cream, we eat ice cream every day. There's just plenty of low key things to do. And we love it. So after being there a few days and having fun with the family, all of a sudden have this desire to have a home there, right and not just a home a waterfront property like the one we were renting with its own dock and a grassy backyard with room to store my boat and golf cart. And I would, you know, because I'd need to have a boat golf court cart if we had home there. And on and on. It's a relatively cheap place to buy a home to. I live in New Jersey. So property taxes in Virginia are nothing compared to New Jersey home prices are a fraction of what you might find on the East Coast and beach towns. And the family friendly environment is just priceless. Right. And I'm thinking all this to the point that I actually go on to Zillow, and I'm looking at plots of ground pricing modular homes, and just getting this strong, like desire, like to have a home there. So you know, because I want to try to capture that feeling we had, but forever, right, that wonderful feeling in that moment. I wanted to be like forever, kind of like my son had right? Can we just always live in Chincoteague and it becomes so easy to get pulled into wanting things and wanting possessions. And there's nothing wrong to desire good things. But we do need to keep our desires in check. So anyway, we got home, it was a Sunday night. And then Monday morning, I'm having my prayer time. And part of my prayer time as I read the mass readings for the day. And then I'll usually go look to see what saints feast day it is. And that day at the feast was St. Augustine and I read a short reflection on his life. And then there was a series of quotes from some of his writings. And here's the one that hit me. The love of worldly possessions is a sort of bird line which untangles the soul and prevents it from flying to God. Now, I guess I could Google it to figure out which of his writings that was from but but that quote, really hit me. The love of worldly possessions is a sort of bird line which untangles the soul and prevents it from flying to God. So I'm not super familiar with the bird line, but I'm guessing it's some type of trap or something to catch a bird, which ties up their, you know, their wings, their feathers, their legs, whatever it might be, so that if someone's haunting them, they can capture them and grab them. And so St. Augustine is saying this about the love of worldly possessions, right? That's the thing that can entangle our souls. Right? We were created to know love and serve God in this life so we can be happy with him forever. The next, our soul will live forever in one of two places. So this love of worldly possessions is sort of bird line which untangles our soul to prevent it from flying to God. Right from from getting to God, that's kind of getting to heaven. Right, so, so love of worldly possessions. Wow. And I love this quote, it's so accurate. It's and it's well articulated. And it reminds me what we spoke about a few episodes back about the rich young man. So let's look at this for a moment. Why? Why can the love of worldly possessions be a trap and a restriction that keeps us from flying to God? In Matthew 624, we read, No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Right, so that's Matthew six, verse 24. So what is Mammon? Well, Mammon is that love of worldly possessions that St. Augustine is talking about? Mammon is the love of money. It's the love of wealth, the love of possessions, and it tries to influence our desires and longings. When we yield to the spirit of Mammon, we're putting our desires for goods and riches above our desire for God. As I said, As Catholics we believe that God created us to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this life, so that we can be happy with him forever in the next, our goal is to get to heaven to forever to well, in the presence of our Heavenly Father, we were made by love, in love for love. When we allow desires for worldly things, so money, possessions, vacation homes, boats, golf carts, you know, that's my list, you can do your list. But when we allow these things to eclipse our desire to love God, we fall, we turn our back on our Creator, because we can't serve two masters, we will either hate one, and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. So that line from St. Augustine, the love of worldly possessions, that prevents us from flying to God. I see St. Augustine is words as a warning he's warning us. And, again, I might defensively argue that My priority is not worldly possessions. But do I allow the concerns for this world to sometimes overwhelm me? Or to become my priority? Yes. As I shared about the recent vacation, that that budding desire for the vacation home, and I do feel like that could easily tempt me, I could start to tease at that idea, the desire to have a vacation home, why would I want it? I would need to ask myself that several times to really get to the bottom of it, my answer could range from I want it because I deserve it. Or I, I want it because it would be so nice to have it and I'd be able to use it whenever we want. Or maybe I could start to make a more elaborate excuse like it's an investment, or I could use it when I want and then generously I can make it available to friends or maybe even maybe even religious people to have a place to get away or have a personal retreat. I mean, how noble of me. Right, I could come up with a million different excuses. But if I let that little twinge of desire take foothold, it will start to build and it can easily become a stumbling block to what the Lord desires for me, it will become that bird line that St. Augustine talks about. So how do I defend against this? How do I determine when a desire for something worldly isn't wrong? Right, so we definitely need to take it to prayer. And if we aren't doing this regularly, if we're not taking these types of things to prayer, if we aren't bringing our finances, our our financial decisions, particularly the larger ones to the Lord in prayer. And this is not easy. The more we seek the Lord and His plan for us, the easier it becomes to hear Him and to follow His Spirit. So in prayer, let's answer this question. What is our ultimate goal? Is it to get to heaven? Or is it to have a comfortable life. And if you're anything like me, I would love to get to heaven and have a comfortable life. But that's not usually how it works. We can get to heaven and have a joyful life. But I know that following the Lord is not easy. It's hard. It's full of trials and tribulations. But it's also full of joy when we allow the Holy Spirit to come in and be part of our lives. When I prayerfully think of buying a home and Chincoteague and ask why do I want this? What is my goal? My goal is to get to heaven. I want to buy a home and Chincoteague because I think it'd be fun. And I do feel the Lord has put other things in front of us. We feel called to be generous to those around us in order to do that. One of our goals is to pay off our mortgage, and then buying a home and Chincoteague I can clearly see that it just doesn't fit into that picture. So I can easily dismiss it. Now, if we were making, you know, $200,000 more a year than then, you know, on top of our income we have now or a million dollars more a year, like could we pay off our home in the next year? Yeah, if we're making a million dollars a year, we could pay it off next month, right? And then we could save and up to buy a home and Chincoteague while continuing to be generous and to those around us. But, but this doesn't fit into the plan that we feel the Lord has for us at this moment. And that's fine. Now let's look at the flip side. We could definitely go to a mortgage rep and get approved for a $350,000 loan to go buy a second home in Virginia. But then we'd be burdened with another 2700 bucks for a monthly payment. That doesn't sound fun. We would be on a super tight budget, one that doesn't allow us to pay off our current home or mortgage quickly. It would also severely impact our ability to be generous. It would add stress and it can and concern for something that I just want it it would be a hindrance for us to be able to respond immediately to what the Lord might put put on our hearts or calls to do it would be a trap Ah, there's that word. It would be a trap. It would be that bird line that keeps us from flying to Lord, just as St. Augustine said it would. So maybe that's it. That's another perspective for us to use when we're trying to prayerfully discern financial things. So let's ask ourselves, can this become an entanglement from flying to the Lord, when we're looking at a financial decision? Can this become an entanglement? To keep us to keep our soul from from flying to the Lord? Could this become a weight, a burden? That would keep keep us from loving, giving or serving the way the Lord is calling us to? I can confidently say, yes. Buying a home in Chincoteague right now would be a wait a trap that could keep us from being free from flying to the Lord in any way he might call us. That's true for this moment. I doubt it will change but it could. So thank you, St. Augustine, thank you for your warning. It comes at a relevant moment for me. I hope my sharing of this is helpful to you. Again, if you go to the podcast description, there's a link in there if you have a particular question for me or something you want me to talk about a suggestion topic for the podcast here I'd be open to it. But hopefully this is helpful. Thank you for joining me today. God bless. Thank you for listening to Catholic money talk. I hope you join us again next time. Please click subscribe and your podcast app to get notified of new episodes. God bless you and have a great day.