Fr. Luigi Brioni sx
Sunday 28th, Ordinary Time, Year B
Wis 7: 7-11; He 4: 12-13; Mk 10: 17-30
GO, Jesus says in a commanding way to the man in today's Gospel. GO, sell, ... then COME. These two imperatives, GO and COME, have for long caught my heart too as the only way Jesus really wants us to be His followers. Actually, the Christian sequence, unlike in this Sunday, is not GO and then COME, but COME and then GO. As a norm, Jesus calls us first to Himself as disciples and then sends us to the world as apostles.
"Come and see", He would say to his first disciples/apostles Andrew and John. Then GO!
In today's Gospel, the COME of Jesus is at the end of his conversation with the inquisitive man, but it is not the end for him, for, after coming, there is the following of Him, who is more worthy than all his possessions and ways of life, worthy of everything, for no other thing can be compared with Him!
The invitation of Jesus to sell everything means then also for us to be so personally united with Him that no other interest or worry or hope would be more important. Nothing should take us away from the totality of His love for us. Nothing. For, when Jesus is with us and we are with Jesus, do we need, do we truly need, anything else, anything more?
So that's why Jesus' invitation to GO and SELL everything is Good News, the best one we can ever expect!
Christian life is an absolute life, that no compromise or condition or culture or human tradition can challenge. If I want to follow Jesus, that is to make Him my absolute leader, shepherd, saviour, friend, my truth and way, my life and resurrection, then I need to tell Him, "Yes, I am coming, no matter what, ready to be loved by you, ".
"But he was a man of great wealth."
Rich of what? For what? How can we be more human or more ourselves, with things, with anything? Can anything add something substantial to my dignity or final destiny? What? Can we think of anything? Why then do most of us make enormous efforts, from morning to night and day after day, to identify ourselves with things, be they money, power, authority, degrees ... and you name them all? But people go through so much work, concerns, violence, gossip ... to get a small thing in their pocket, to be over others, to command the admiration even of a small crowd! What a waste of time: so much for so little breeze of nothingness!
In Sierra Leone it is common to hear the sentence that "Power pass all", meaning that power is more important than anything else in life. But can we buy this saying and shape our life accordingly?
"GO ... everything ... give to the poor!"
The poor. Either we accept them with Jesus or Jesus can never be with us!
The poor for a Christian are not only those that can hardly get a decent meal a day, but all those that have lost the true meaning of life, that live days without hope, that do not find a friend, that have no home, no job, no future, ...
Once again Jesus clearly and unconditionally calls on each one of us, all of us who prefer Him to everything else, to be both with Him and the poor, to enjoy His company and to be in the world as He was, the visible presence of the invisible One.
Next Sunday, October 18th, the Church celebrates World Mission Sunday, a day for all Christians to rejoice for the faith "someone" (parents, friends, priests, teachers, ... or books, events, sufferings ...) has passed on to us by introducing us to Christ. The more thankful we are for this encounter, the more ready we all are to pass on this gift to as many others as possible. Thus our gratefulness both to the Lord and His Apostles for the joy of faith, if sincere and deep, becomes the source of life for others, because we readily did GO and sold everything for the sake of Christ and His eternal life.
Jesus' COME to us remains the most satisfying invitation we have ever heard in our life, an invitation we cannot refuse, because, when we GO, it will open the door to our full communion both with Him and to the whole world ... never to be lost!
Sunday 28th, Ordinary Time, Year B
Wis 7: 7-11; He 4: 12-13; Mk 10: 17-30
GO, Jesus says in a commanding way to the man in today's Gospel. GO, sell, ... then COME. These two imperatives, GO and COME, have for long caught my heart too as the only way Jesus really wants us to be His followers. Actually, the Christian sequence, unlike in this Sunday, is not GO and then COME, but COME and then GO. As a norm, Jesus calls us first to Himself as disciples and then sends us to the world as apostles.
"Come and see", He would say to his first disciples/apostles Andrew and John. Then GO!
In today's Gospel, the COME of Jesus is at the end of his conversation with the inquisitive man, but it is not the end for him, for, after coming, there is the following of Him, who is more worthy than all his possessions and ways of life, worthy of everything, for no other thing can be compared with Him!
The invitation of Jesus to sell everything means then also for us to be so personally united with Him that no other interest or worry or hope would be more important. Nothing should take us away from the totality of His love for us. Nothing. For, when Jesus is with us and we are with Jesus, do we need, do we truly need, anything else, anything more?
So that's why Jesus' invitation to GO and SELL everything is Good News, the best one we can ever expect!
Christian life is an absolute life, that no compromise or condition or culture or human tradition can challenge. If I want to follow Jesus, that is to make Him my absolute leader, shepherd, saviour, friend, my truth and way, my life and resurrection, then I need to tell Him, "Yes, I am coming, no matter what, ready to be loved by you, ".
"But he was a man of great wealth."
Rich of what? For what? How can we be more human or more ourselves, with things, with anything? Can anything add something substantial to my dignity or final destiny? What? Can we think of anything? Why then do most of us make enormous efforts, from morning to night and day after day, to identify ourselves with things, be they money, power, authority, degrees ... and you name them all? But people go through so much work, concerns, violence, gossip ... to get a small thing in their pocket, to be over others, to command the admiration even of a small crowd! What a waste of time: so much for so little breeze of nothingness!
In Sierra Leone it is common to hear the sentence that "Power pass all", meaning that power is more important than anything else in life. But can we buy this saying and shape our life accordingly?
"GO ... everything ... give to the poor!"
The poor. Either we accept them with Jesus or Jesus can never be with us!
The poor for a Christian are not only those that can hardly get a decent meal a day, but all those that have lost the true meaning of life, that live days without hope, that do not find a friend, that have no home, no job, no future, ...
Once again Jesus clearly and unconditionally calls on each one of us, all of us who prefer Him to everything else, to be both with Him and the poor, to enjoy His company and to be in the world as He was, the visible presence of the invisible One.
Next Sunday, October 18th, the Church celebrates World Mission Sunday, a day for all Christians to rejoice for the faith "someone" (parents, friends, priests, teachers, ... or books, events, sufferings ...) has passed on to us by introducing us to Christ. The more thankful we are for this encounter, the more ready we all are to pass on this gift to as many others as possible. Thus our gratefulness both to the Lord and His Apostles for the joy of faith, if sincere and deep, becomes the source of life for others, because we readily did GO and sold everything for the sake of Christ and His eternal life.
Jesus' COME to us remains the most satisfying invitation we have ever heard in our life, an invitation we cannot refuse, because, when we GO, it will open the door to our full communion both with Him and to the whole world ... never to be lost!