“Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

This Sunday’s Gospel requires us to deeply examine our lives. Jesus was speaking to “the rich young man” and he told him that to inherit eternal life, he needed sell everything, give it to the poor and then follow Jesus. The young man left sad for “he had many possessions”. I think this causes us to ponder Jesus’ response. Are we required to sell everything we own and give it to the poor, for us to share in eternal life? Jesus goes on to say that it’s very hard for a rich person to enter God’s kingdom.  And yet, compared to most people in the world today, most, if not all, of us are wealthy. What is Jesus really saying here?

St Ignatius of Loyola often wrote about attachments: ordered and disordered. Rightly ordered, God is our priority, our focus.  Everything we do revolves around that relationship and everything else in life supports that relationship. However, we often have disordered attachments to people, money, things, jobs etc. that prevent us from loving God and living as God calls us to live. Ignatius taught that we need to examine our lives and our desires and ask ourselves if this person, this thing, or this situation is helping us to love God and live out God’s plan or not. If it is not helping, then we are called to let it go.

In our Gospel today, the young man has a disordered attachment to his possessions. Jesus can see that while this young man is striving to follow the law, his heart is attached to his possessions and that is preventing him from really following Jesus. Why is it hard for a rich person to ender God’s kingdom? The more we have, the easier it can be to develop disordered attachments to “stuff” or to selfishness. Attachments get in the way of hearing and following the Lord.

I invite all of us this week to read this Gospel a few times. I invite you to ask the Lord to reveal any disordered attachments that you have in your life. Lastly, I encourage you to ask God to help you let go of these attachments and make further steps in fully following Jesus.