Further Reflection on Today's Gospel...

Listening to today's homilies and reflecting further on today's Gospel in light of yesterday's feast for Ignatius led me back to Ignatius' First Principle and Foundation from the Spiritual Exercises.

Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.

And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created. 

From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him on to his end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it. 

For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things in all that is allowed to the choice of our free will and is not prohibited to it; so that, on our part, we want not health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest; desiring and choosing only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are created.

I really think the key is to read this Gospel in light of our "higher calling" to serve God, as Fr. Patrick put it in his homily today. By the way, you can see the New Yorker cover he referenced here.