As a boy, I thought I’d like to be Richie Rich and have an English butler, a robot dog and a helicopter with my initials on the side. But I never grew up to be a rich man. Now that I’m a Jesuit, I never will be. Thank goodness: one less thing to worry about!
Money comes up a lot in the Bible. In the Gospels, Jesus pays close attention to how it gets in the way of a friendship with him. Today in Matthew’s Gospel, we don’t hear Jesus say that rich people never get to heaven. Instead, he tells his disciples to picture the largest animal they know and imagine it traveling through an impossibly small space. That’s how hard the challenge becomes when the allures of wealth interfere with a person’s readiness to follow Christ. In the end, it’s not about stuff. It’s about relationship.
How is my relationship with Jesus today?
—Joe Kraemer, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic of the West Province currently beginning his Regency assignment in the Advancement Office in Los Gatos, California.