Monday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
In 2024 31 billionaires passed away the world over. Most recent deaths of billionaires include Giorgio Armani, the 91-year-old fashion icon, who died in September 2025, and Indian auto parts billionaire Sunjay Kapur who passed away in June 2025 after swallowing a bee during a polo match. He had an internal bee sting. Their deaths brought home the reality that, as the Irish say, “there are no pockets on shrouds.” In other words, “You can’t take it with you.”
Everyday brings us closer to the day when we will die. Even billionaires. This truth is reflected in the parable of the rich fool that we hear from Luke today, who stored up and hoarded his riches without thought of his mortality and that everything is temporary, including life itself.
Generosity was so important in Jesus’ day that it was recognised as worship. Early followers understood their lives as gifts, and they lived generously toward one another. This is especially reflected in the second chapter of Acts (also by Luke): “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts . . .”
Commenting on the early Christian community, theologian Norman Wirzba provides a helpful delineation between gratitude and generosity, indicating that practicing the former without the latter leaves room for greed to sneak in: “To receive with open hands is also to continue to keep one's hands open so that others can receive from you. Gratitude, in other words, is the sign that the gift has been received, while generosity is the sign that the recipient has been transformed by the gift.”
When you are on your death bed will you say aloud that you’d wish you’d been less generous? Less grateful? Will your shroud have pockets? In the meantime, let us live more gratefully, more generously. You never know when you’ll swallow a bee.
—Timothy J. Cronin