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Then Jesus told them a parable. “There was a rich man whose land produced
a
bountiful harvest. He asked himself,
‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my
harvest?’ And he said, ‘This is what
I shall do: I
shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There
I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to
myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up
for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!” But God
said to him, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of
you; and the
things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Thus
will it be for the one who stores up
treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.”
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During the movie “Harry Potter and
the
Sorcerer’s Stone,” Harry encounters the mirror of dreams.
The mirror itself is nothing more than an
expression of the mind enacted in a real way. It shows Harry what
he wants most of all, and therefore, although quite
pleasing to him, really accomplishes nothing. As Professor
Dumbledore wisely reasons: the mirror gives neither
knowledge nor truth. People have wasted
away in front of it, he says, because to dwell on dreams can easily
make us
forget to live.
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This
session of the
movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”
presents one of the principal truths
of living well. There is nothing
wrong
with having dreams of what we want to do. But we have to work with
those dreams, that is, put them up against
reality and ask the right questions. For
Harry Potter, one of those questions dealt with whether or not it was
good to
spend his time lamenting that his father and mother were no longer
alive.
Jesus also addresses dreams in some of the stories he told. One of them dealt with a man who had riches and wanted more. The man did not want to measure his dreams of being rich up against what was right and good. He was only interested in his own gratification and because of it, missed the very thing that he should have been concerned about. He was interested in his dream of being rich, but in the process, he forgot to live his life. Consequently, he did not enjoy eternal life. Dreams and desires are immensely important in life. We want to have important careers and accomplish wonderful things for ourselves. We want to have successful families. But Professor Dumbledore’s words to Harry Potter are important: you cannot "dwell on dreams and forget to live." |
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THOUGHT
What should we desire most of all?
PRAYER Good and gracious God, your Son called us to be people who
lived the
dream that he had prepared for us, the dream of the kingdom of God
beginning
here on earth. Help us always place our
own dreams of a rewarding life within the vision of Jesus’ dream
of the
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©2007 Capuchin
Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America |
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