By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza, The Catholic Thing - How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!... Is that true? Jesus said it (Mark 10:23) to His Apostles after the encounter with the rich young man, so it must be true. In affluent countries where everyone, even the poor, is rich in relative historical terms, Christians are inclined to think that Jesus did not really mean it. Or that it is not really true, and that Jesus was employing the hyperbole (“cut it off”, “pluck it out”) that marked Biblical preaching.