But what about the rest of us? God knows I don't have any bank balances to speak of, and what used to be a small portfolio is now an empty folder. What kinds of investments can I make? And more, what are the rules of investment I should follow?

Most financial advisors talk about long term plans made to reach long term goals. Frankly, goals about money have never been much of a motivation for me. But what about eternal goals? What about holiness and heaven, virtues and gifts, prayer and sacraments, and other people? If those are really what I value, I ought to be fully invested in them.

Our faith teaches us to be prudent, to make wise and discerning choices. But it also tells us to put all we have and all we are on the line. Contradictory? Perhaps on the surface. But the self-emptying gift of Christ's cross shows us how to do both.

There is no more secure investment than to place our lives -- wholly and completely as they are -- into God's hands. There is no better set of values than those he has given us in the Scriptures, and by the example of his Son Jesus. There is nothing more worth our hearts, minds, souls, or strength than loving God and our neighbor. And there is nothing so undervalued in our culture as the things that genuinely, and by their very nature, have value: things like faith, and truth, and even God himself.

I used to think about what I'd try to save if my home ever caught fire and I had to leave in a hurry. The truth is that what is genuinely valuable can't be saved from a fire, and perhaps can't even be destroyed by one. I'd just hate to realize at the end that I had spent all I had on things that didn't matter, that the treasure my heart followed wasn't a treasure at all. As we turn to the Holy Spirit and the gifts and fruit that he alone offers us, we might think about where we've invested ourselves, and what we count as the valuables in our lives.

Jaymie Stuart Wolfe is a wife and mother of eight children, and a disciple of the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales. She is an inspirational author, speaker, musician and serves as an Associate Children's Editor at Pauline Books and Media.