Tuesday of week 20 in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Matthew 19:23-30In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ striking image of a camel passing through the eye of a needle is not primarily about accomplishing something extremely difficult; it reveals the impossibility of entering the Kingdom while still clinging to what prevents us from belonging completely to God. Peter understands the deeper point when he says, “We have left everything and followed you.” Discipleship is ultimately about this “everything.” Jesus does not simply ask us to reduce our attachments until we are small enough to squeeze through a narrow opening; He calls us to surrender ourselves entirely. Wealth is dangerous precisely when it gives us the illusion that we can secure our lives without God. But the “everything” we must leave can also include our ambitions, plans, reputation, relationships, fears, resentments, and even our insistence on controlling our own future. Such surrender seems impossible, and therefore Jesus adds the essential truth: “For men, this is impossible; for God everything is possible.” Renunciation is not achieved by willpower alone; it is the work of grace that gradually frees the heart. And what we surrender is not simply lost: Jesus promises that those who leave everything for His sake will receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life. Christian poverty, therefore, is not about having nothing; it is about allowing nothing to become more important than Christ. The true disciple is the person who can place everything in His hands because he has discovered that, in possessing Christ, he already possesses the greatest treasure. Let’s reflect: Am I willing to place everything in God’s hands, allowing His grace to free me from every attachment so that Christ alone becomes my greatest treasure?
Don Giorgio