How will our Christian faith impact our worldly success? We all want to be successful here-- that is a normal, human reaction. I'm guessing that was true in Jesus' time as well. Why else would the disciples be arguing about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom they thought Jesus was going to establish on earth? The issue of the relationsip between our earthly success and our eternal "success," if you will (our eternal life with God, more properly) is one with which the Church continues to struggle. There are those these days who talk of the "Prosperity Gospel"-- the idea that is you truly follow Christ, it will make you rich. Today's Gospel reading (Mk 10:28- 31) can be read that way. Jesus talks about how if you give up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or lands for His sake and the sake of the Gospel, you will have those things a hundred fold "now in this present age" and eternal life as well. So, the logic goes, just be a good Christian and you'll have 100 times what you had before. You'll be rich! Having 100 times the lands is understandable, but exactly how one would have 100 times the wives, children, parents and such is a bit harder to fathom, if you're trying to take what Jesus says very literally. The challenge in understanding what Jesus is saying is aleays trying to appreciate when He engaging in hyperbole for effect, and when He is not. We all understand that His command that we should pluck our eye our if it causes us to sin is intended as a metaphor, not to be taken literally (or else none of us would have eyes). But what is the way in which we should consider today's reading? Let me suggest that what Jesus is saying today is also a metaphor, although perhaps of a different sort. He isn't saying that we will need to abandon our families to follow Him, although in individual cases being a Christian could certainly cause family conflict. I see nothing in the Gospels that suggests that Jesus hoped or intended that His coming would break up families. Quite to the contrary, Jesus is very clear about the continuing obligation of children to support their parents, for example. The passage we read today follows the passage about the rich young man who will not give up all his possessions. He is too attached to them to abandon them and follow Jesus. Jesus today points to the same issue-- the problem that we are inordinately attached to family, and lands, and for that reason cannot put our relationship with Christ first. Jesus is saying that we need to reduce our attachment to worldly relationships so that we can put Christ first. He isn't saying -- and I think this is important-- He isn't saying that our worldly connections don't matter, or that we should abandon them to follow Him. What He is saying is that we need to put things into the proper perspective, and the proper perspective is that Jesus is first. So where does the 100 fold stuff come in? I think the answer is that if we prioritize things correctly, if we put our relationship with Christ first, then all those other relationships will blossom, grow, expand, be nourished by our connection to God. We will have-- in our existing relationships with spouses, children, parents and all the rest-- a relationship that is categorically superior to what we had. It will be "100 times" better. We won't get new spouses, parents, children and such-- we'll have exponentially-better relationships with the ones we have. Will we have more money? Probably not, or at least not because of our being more-truly Christian. But our lives will be 100 times better here on earth, and in the life to come.