18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2022

 

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2022

A quick story

when I was in Lourdes at the beginning of June, I saw people who looked like they were practicing for the Tour De France.  When I got back to the United States, I looked up the route for the Tour De France, and one of the last stages did actually start from Lourdes, and that stage was on TV just last Thursday

So at my parents house, I watched that stage, and it was awesome.  The stage actually started at the shrine!

 

Anyways, watching the Tour de France, I was amazed how the riders orient their entire life around cycling. 

1)    First of all, each rider has an entire nutrition plan put together by nutritionists and doctors.  Every single thing they eat and drink is geared towards making them the best bicyclist they can be.

 

2)    Secondly, they train relentlessly riding their bikes 5 hours a day most days, and when they are not training on their bikes, they are lifting weights or doing some other type of cardio exercise.  Or sleeping in oxygen tents

 

3)    Thirdly, hundreds of thousands of dollars go into their equipment, their bikes, the team personnel, the cars following the riders on the road with spare bikes and spare wheels if one goes flat for a rider

 

And so, yet again, watching that race and this Gospel today have me asking myself “Am I pursuing Heaven with everything I have?”

Does what I eat put me closer or further from Heaven?

Am I looking to orient my entire life, trimming, so to speak, everything out of my life that would slow me down in my pursuit of becoming a saint?

The guy who builds bigger barns for his food instead of sharing it with the poor is spiritually out of shape and spiritually flabby.  And it cost him everything.

The guy in today’s parable is trying to win the tour de France pulling his barn behind him

 

Let us not build bigger barns to store our possessions in, let us, as Saint Paul says, run the race of this life so as to win Heaven.