Making the Right Choice

One of the things we Americans love most is our freedom and our ability to make choices. Yet, sometimes having to make choices can be very difficult. The rich young man in yesterday’s gospel is given the special call to leave everything an follow Jesus and yet he chooses to hang on to his worldly possessions instead. What a tragic choice. Jesus tells us in today’s gospel that it is very hard for a rich man to enter heaven. In some ways, being poor can have advantages. If you don’t have money, you don’t even have the option of buying a bunch of stuff.

For those of us that live somewhere in between poverty and riches, our lives are much more complicated. Should I buy that TV or give some money to the Church? The ultimate lesson from the gospel over the last two days is not that material possessions are bad and that rich people don’t go to heaven. Rather, we need to have the right balance and know what is really important. The question is, are we detached enough to recognize when something is more important than material wealth? Is there anything in this world that is keeping us from having our eyes fixed on the world to come? May God teach us to judge wisely the things of earth and to love the things of heaven.