Rules have their place. “External rules are clearly intended to impress on minds and hearts what hands are doing,” wrote Alice Camille in a reflection a few years back. Get in the habit of giving, for example, and in time that will help make you a more generous person. But the following of rules is not the sum total of holiness.

My friends once owned a circus, and they confirm: The biggest animal can’t pass through the smallest door. Wide creatures require wide berths! So here’s the problem: You and I become wide-load creatures if we possess a lot of stuff, or even when our egos swell to the size of our imagined self-importance.

Jesus looked him hard in the eye—and loved him! He said, “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.”

Minimalism seems to be all the rage these days. Maybe the recent recession and collapse of the real estate market was a big reality check. For a while, people had to cut back. But now, even though the economy and even the housing market has improved, many people seem to want to keep cutting back.

To help us become closer followers of Christ, we confess our failings to our merciful God.

They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, “Then who can be saved?” Mark’s audience must have had the same shock as Saint Peter and the other disciples at Jesus’ radical teaching about wealth. People today might feel the same consternation.

That which can be lost cannot be deemed riches. —Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life