The Wisdom to Follow God

“Let’s face it, riches tend to make us self-reliant, self-centered, and distracted by worldly pursuits. We put too much confidence in ourselves and our wealth and lose our childlike trust and reliance on the goodness and mercy of God.”

“Riches are a particularly dangerous distraction, because they can insulate us from a fact that is obvious to the poor: life is precarious, and ultimately, we rest in the hands of God”

“isn’t Jesus ribbing them, assuring them with affectionate irony that what they will inherit is simply unimaginable?”

“No wonder Jesus gives him a mundane answer – you have done the things you were given to do, the things you think you can do and still they have brought you to me”

“as Maryknoll missioners around the world and others who follow Christ have found, we do not get rich with many houses for ourselves, but with many doors being opened to us.”

“Why does our faith demand so much? Because Christ in loving us gave his all, even to the point of dying on the cross; and if we are to follow him into his kingdom, we must do nothing less.”

“Those who think their wealth makes them self-sufficient are especially likely to think they can manage very well without God”

“We can be as good as we like, but if we think we’re sufficient unto ourselves, then the God Jesus proclaimed is shut out of our lives.”

"The dialogue of Jesus with the rich young man, related in the nineteenth chapter of Saint Matthew's Gospel, can serve as a useful guide for listening once more in a..."

“How is it possible to have life and joy so freely offered and so deeply desired and yet have nothing happen? The simple answer is: something else got in the way.”

“The number of possessions we own is irrelevant, it's rather the significance we place upon them that Jesus is asking us to relinquish”

“what the Gospel of Mark makes abundantly clear is, when we accept Jesus' sacrifice for ourselves, there will be something asked of us in return...The life of a disciple of Jesus is a life of sacrifice.”

“To live in the household of God is to live a life of radical love. Therefore, certain things in your life that are egregiously repugnant to the path of love have to be eliminated.”

“Because, see, eternal life begins even now as we find our mission. 'So what must I do to gain eternal life?' That is a really good question.”

“The bottom line, in this whole process surrender your life to the grace and mercy of God. That's the path of eternal life in a nutshell.”

“I love the idea that Jesus loved the man in this story even though he wasn’t perfect and struggled to sell what he had and give to the poor. What a comfort to hear that Jesus continues to love us even when we fall short.”

“Those who have attained detachment towards worldly possessions will never walk away sad. Even if part of what they have or even the whole of it be sacrificed for the sake of Christ.”

“The wise heart is one that knows what is worth spending time on, and what is a waste of time”

“In a world of “more” and instant gratification, how often do we sacrifice anything for our soul and the souls of others?”

“Wise people are still and calm when everyone else is rushing around in a flap. Because wisdom is not something we just get for ourselves: it is a gift.”

“You can be the most courageous person in the world but if you don't know how to apply your courage or when to use it, well, what good is it?”

“But wisdom in the Bible means seeing life from the perspective of God, it means having an intimacy with God by which I now understand the world and live my life”

“Without wisdom we won't know what to do with the goods of the world and they will eventually turn on us. With wisdom we will know how to use and enjoy even the simplest things that we have”

“Prudence is a feel for the particular. Wisdom is a vision of the whole. That's why they're such a potent combination, why it's so important to ask for both those things.”