Now that football season is in full swing, so is the gambling season. In the USA, professional football is the sport that most people bet on. It is predicted that people will bet 35 billion dollars on NFL games this year. Because the prospect of wagering in order to win riches is very tempting, there have arisen numerous experts offering advice on whom to bet. One of the local radio stations that is devoted to sports talk, gives over a portion of their programing at this time of year to “experts” that promise to give you “can’t miss” games to bet on, if only you listen to them. Far more critical than finding out who might win this week’s game is knowing the meaning of life and the most important things we should focus our attention on. We need to find real experts to know on what we should wager our time and talents and treasure. The young man who approaches Jesus has an idea that He is an expert to be consulted on how to obtain the ultimate prize, eternal life. He is right about that. But even conceding that Jesus knows how to get there, the man hesitates when Jesus asks him to risk all that he possesses to follow Him. That reveals that that He doesn’t quite believe that Jesus is the One to follow. His riches mean more to him than eternal life. Life is a gamble and the only way we can win is to follow Jesus. The scientist, philosopher and devout Catholic Blaise Pascal proposed his famous “wager” to explain why we should follow Jesus. In following Jesus, we have everything to gain and nothing to lose, but if we reject Him, we have everything to lose and nothing to gain. In that case put your bets on Jesus: You can’t lose! Congratulations to our parishioner Dominic Barracchini on his ordination to the Permanent Diaconate last Saturday. We are blessed to have Dominic assigned to Our Lady of the Valley Parish. Dominic will join our other deacons: Mark Marvenko and Rick Ernst in serving you, our parish family. We look forward to the ways that Deacon Dominic will bless our parish with his gifts for many years to come.