Rules have their place. As Alice Camille said in PrepareTheWord’s “Exploring the Word” for September 2, “External rules are clearly intended to impress on minds and hearts what hands are doing.” Get in the habit of giving, for example, and in time that will help make you a more generous person.

If you could ask God for anything—and in fact, you can—what would it be? Prayers are often unimaginative and circular. For example every day I pray for the well-being of various relatives and friends who are troubled. This heartfelt prayer is followed by all the things I was taught to pray for: world peace, leadership, the needy, the dead. Sometimes I include something along the lines of: Lord, help me to do the right thing today!

Recently an Australian mining heiress—one of the world’s wealthiest people—sparked controversy by suggesting that if you’re not a millionaire, it is because you are lazy and resentful. The lifelong billionaire followed that statement several weeks later with the suggestion that Australia was losing its competitive edge because of workers’ demands for a livable minimum wage and safe working conditions.

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.

The gospel has a get-rich-quick scheme you may not have tried yet. It’s fail-safe and works equally well in shaky economic times as in secure ones. It might be called total divestment. Jesus offers this plan to the rich fellow who comes to him asking for the secret to inheriting eternal life. Sell everything, Jesus urges him, and give the money to the poor. Once freed from money management, come and be a disciple.

A sacrifice can change someone’s life today, a country tomorrow, and even change a history forever. —Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters