“Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”
After saying this, Jesus is questioned by the disciples: “Who then can be saved?” His answer: “For men this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” Jesus puts in right order worldly success and wealth, as personified in the first reading in the lifestyle of the prince of Tyre, whose heart, God says through Ezekiel, has grown haughty from riches. Not only riches but intelligence and worldly success made the prince of Tyre believe himself to be a god. It is this same sin that Jesus says is impossible to save oneself from—“it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle”— but for God it is possible because for Him all things are possible.
God, how can I begin to understand that the pursuit of riches is a chase after wind? No matter how I might try to limit the place that money and money making holds in my life, it is impossible for me to know when enough is enough. But for you, God, all things are possible. Thank you for the words of your Son, who sets things in right order by serving all in his words and through his life: “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” God, help me learn how to place you before the pursuit of riches and its attendant elusiveness and deception.
Father in heaven, I give you every thought, burden, and worry that passes through my mind today. In them alone, I become entangled and lost in darkness. In you, eternal source of love, is light that penetrates every darkness. I know you want me to be one of “your people” and that you want to be my God. Give me the opportunity today to humble myself to recognize that. Free me of the drive for earthly power and honor; set in my path, through your grace, the people you desire me to lead closer to you in so far as I imitate Christ in my words and through my life. For me, this is impossible; for you, Lord, all things are possible.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.