Money

Over at Christ is in our Midst the most challenging things are posted. Today there is an an excerpt from a letter by St. Jerome (Factoid: Blessed Jerome was an anchorite and the only one of the Fathers who favored the Massoretic Text over the Septuagint.) to Eustochium that disturbs me much.

A certain one of the brethren, who was stingy rather than avaricious, not remembering that the Lord was sold for thirty pieces of silver, left behind him at his death one hundred gold coins, which he had earned through weaving linen. The monks (for about five thousand of them dwell in that neighborhood in separate cells) took counsel together what was to be done with it. Some said that they should be distributed to the poor; others that they should be given to the Church; some advised that it be sent back to his parents. But Marcarius and Pambos and Isidore, and the rest of those whom they called fathers - the Holy Spirit speaking with them - decided that the money should be buried with its owner, saying: “Your money perish with you’ (Acts 8:20). And let no one suppose that this was a cruel act. So great fear has come upon all throughout Egypt that to leave one gold piece behind is an offense.

It reminds me of James 5:3 which says:

Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

But what is a husband and father supposed to do? Should we take the example of some of the saints and move our whole families into monasteries? Part of my plan is to accumulate income generating property so that my wife and I will be able to live comfortably in our old age (which seems to be approaching with break-neck speed!) and then leave it to our children. But there are those quotes the Church generates. What to make of them? Is my plan wrong? Should I send a letter to the New Skete Companions and see if they are accepting new novices? I don't know. But that verse in James frightens me.