
Joy in temporal goods. How a person should direct it to God.
1. We listed the first kind of goods as temporal.[1] By temporal goods we mean: riches, status, positions, and other things claiming prestige; and children, relatives, marriages, and so on. All these are possible objects of joy for the will. But the vanity of rejoicing over riches, titles, status, positions, and other similar goods after which people usually strive is clear. If people were better servants of God by being richer, they would be obliged to rejoice in riches. But riches are rather the occasion of their offending God, as the Wise Man teaches: Son, if you be rich you shall not be free from sin [Ecclus. 11:10]. Though it is true that temporal goods of themselves are not necessarily the cause of sin, yet, because of the weakness of its tendencies, the human heart usually becomes attached to them and fails God, which is sin. Thus the Wise Man says you will not be free from sin. This is why the Lord in the Gospel calls them thorns; the one who willfully handles them will be wounded with some sin [Mt. 13:22; Lk. 8:14]. In St. Luke's Gospel the exclamation – which ought to be greatly feared - asserts: How difficult will it be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of heaven (those who have joy in them), and demonstrates clearly a person's obligation not to rejoice in riches, since one is thereby exposed to so much danger [Lk. 18:24; Mt. 19:23]. In order to turn us from this danger, David also taught: If riches abound, do not set your heart on them [Ps. 62:10]. St John of the Cross, ‘Ascent of Mt Carmel’, Book 3. Ch 18.
The picture of St Luke the Evangelist is from fresco in Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 1486-90