The Apostles saw with
sorrow - the Lord too - how the young man who did not want to leave his
wealth behind to follow the Master left. They saw him leave with that
peculiar sadness of one who does not correspond to what God is asking of
him. They all perhaps thought that he could have been one of the most
intimate group of people, those who heard Jesus' intimate confidences
and later received the mandate to evangelize the world, to go with the
doctrine of Christ to the ends of the earth.
In this atmosphere, as
they were starting out again, the Lord said to them: It will be hard for
a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And he added: Indeed, I say
unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. The disciples were
greatly astonished.1
He who puts his heart
into the goods of the earth is unable to meet the Lord, because man can
have God as his end, whom he reaches also through material things as the
simple means they are, or he can put wealth as the goal of his life, in
its many manifestations of desire for luxury, for comfort, for
possessing more... The heart is oriented according to one of these two
ends. He who has it full of material goods cannot love God: one cannot
serve God and mammon, the Lord taught on another occasion.
The original Aramaic
term for wealth used by the Lord is Mammon, which "derisively designates
an idol. Why is it an idol? For a double reason. First, because the
idol is a substitute for God. It is about one or the other (...).
Secondly, because of its content. Beyond money, a simple monetary unit,
the Mammon idol symbolizes an instrument of the will to power, a means
of possession of the world, an expression of the greed for things and
also a deviation of the relations of men among themselves. The dominion
that the idol exercises over man is opposed to what is proper to the
human person created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore to
his relationship with the Creator ".
He who places his desire
in the things of the earth as if they were an absolute good commits a
kind of idolatry, corrupting his soul as he corrupts himself with
impurity, and often ends up joining the "princes of this world" who rise
up against God, against Christ.
The disordered love of
material goods, whether few or many, is a very serious obstacle to the
following of Christ, as is shown in the passage about the rich young man
that we considered in our meditation yesterday, and in the harsh and
energetic words with which the Lord condemns the misuse of riches.
Therefore, a Christian must often examine whether he loves sobriety and
temperance, whether he is truly detached from the things of the earth,
whether he values the goods of the soul more than those of the body,
whether he uses the goods to do good, whether they bring him closer to
God or separate him from Him, whether he is sparing in personal needs,
restricting superfluous expenses, not yielding to whims, guarding
against the tendency to create false needs for himself. He must see to
it that he takes care of the things in his home, the instruments of
work... What a pity if we ever did not see Jesus passing by us because
we had our hearts set on something that we were soon to leave, something
that was worth so little in comparison with the boundless riches that
Christ gives to those who follow Him!
https://www.hablarcondios.org/meditaciondiaria.aspx