Hearth & Altar

The prince of Tyre made a mistake that is always available to people who become very successful: he concluded that his wisdom and wealth made him a god. He said it out loud. Ezekiel's reply is quiet and devastating: you are a man, not a god. When your murderers come, will you say "I am a god" then?

The prince could not answer.

Jesus says the camel and the needle - one of the most vivid images he ever gave. Getting a rich person into the kingdom of heaven requires the same thing as getting a camel through the eye of a needle: an act that only God can perform. The disciples ask who then can be saved. Jesus says: for God, all things are possible.

Then Peter asks the question every person who has sacrificed something needs to hear answered: we have given up everything and followed you - what will there be for us? And Jesus answers with specificity and promise. A hundredfold. Eternal life. The last will be first.

Your family has given up things. Small things, big things - things given for the sake of following. The promise is for you.

• For our family, that we would hold what we have as stewards and not owners, knowing we are men and women and not gods, we pray to the Lord.
• For the children in our family, that they would learn to trust the God for whom all things are possible rather than the riches of any kind that make people feel sufficient, we pray to the Lord.
• For those in our family who have given up something for Jesus's name and are still waiting for the hundredfold, that the promise would hold, we pray to the Lord.
• Under the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the grace to receive the hundredfold when it comes in the form we were not expecting, we pray to the Lord.

At dinner tonight: ask each person to name something they or the family has given up for the sake of following Jesus - time, money, comfort, a relationship, an opportunity. Then read Jesus's promise: everyone who gives up things for my name will receive a hundred times more. Ask your children: do you believe that? What would it look like if it were true?

The prince of Tyre's mistake was not that he was wealthy. It was that he believed the wealth said something about his nature. What you are modeling for your children when you give things away - and name it as such - is the counter-formation to that mistake.