Homily for Mark 10: 17-30 Twenty Eighth Sunday. October 11th, 2015

Today we discover more fully that the demands of Jesus and His Gospel are high. But today Jesus seems to ask of us the impossible: “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When we read this passage, if we look closely we can see something of ourselves in this rich young man.

Most of us have grown up Christian and we have been taught the Ten Commandments from our childhood. So, I think it’s easy for us to be very sympathetic with this young man. After all, he seems to show generosity- he seems to have a good and right intention- he certainly asks a wonderful question- what must I do to inherit eternal life? How many today, unlike this young man, just presume they are going to heaven and so don’t even bother to ask the question?

I think most of us would say that this young man is good and surely should be able to enter eternal life. However, Jesus’ response to him should be a shocker to us, Jesus says, “No! You have not yet done everything necessary to inherit eternal life…One thing is lacking, go, sell all that you have and follow me.” After Jesus’ response to this young rich man, I think it’s easy for us to feel rather despondent. I think this is natural. It seems that following the ten rules should be good enough. These demands of Jesus seem to be unreasonable… This points out a common tendency, a common way of thinking for us Christians.

It’s easy for us Christians to think like the following, “I am a good person, after all I haven’t murdered anyone, I haven’t robbed a bank. I try to go to Mass on Sunday, although those Holy days are just a bit too inconvenient for me. I may lie, but usually its only little whites ones. And I put my dollar in the collection plate when it comes around.” Unfortunately, with this attitude, we simply make lists of the good things we’ve done and so try to justify ourselves before God. In fact, this type of attitude does not require faith at all. Even an atheist can say it is wrong to kill or to steal. Living just by a set of rules is not living faith. Faith requires us to ascent fully to the person of God in Jesus and to follow His Commands because we love Him. The Ten Commands are not just a minimal list to follow, but are only the beginning of a greater list of the Ten Beatitudes—those things that by doing would perfect us in love and give us true happiness and freedom. Measure ourselves and our actions against a list of rules can be helpful, but it is not in and of itself love…for we just cannot justify ourselves before God.

This is the problem with this young man. He tries to justify Himself before God. He says, “I have done all these since my youth.” How many of us can say the same. However, Jesus says in a word, “no, you cannot justify yourself in front of me, only God is good, only God can justify. You have done only those things that every human being should do, whether he believes in me or not. Even the pagans do as much.” Jesus then goes straight to the root- “You must sell everything and follow me.” Ouch! Everything? Everything! Jesus reveals the truth; this young man had never really given himself to God. He really didn’t trust God and so he trusted in himself and adopted the “following--the--rules--type--of--behavior in order not to be punished. He really lacked faith. This of course is very minimalist and definitely does not show love. For example, a husband may not have cheated on his wife or killed her, but does he love her? Has he given himself completely to her, serving her in love?

So yes, the rich young man lived a good moral life, but he failed to realize, that Christ was calling him to not just live a moral life, but a life of faith, through a total self-giving love. Living a moral life is absolutely necessary, but love demands more, it demands everything—our whole self. Jesus is calling each one of us to return the gift of our life, our existence back to God the Father, through Jesus Christ, the only one who is truly Good, because he is God himself. The rich man in our Gospel today was not truly living the first commandment in the deepest depths of his heart, a commandment which demands one to adore the Lord God completely…totally…absolutely with self abnegation. Why, because true love demands a complete giving of one’s self to the beloved, a mutual total self-offering of one to the other. What woman wants a husband who will only give himself partway to her? Love holds nothing back, it gives all away to the beloved. Jesus demand on the young rich man and on us, goes far beyond just giving away material wealth. Jesus wants us to give away much more than our riches, He wants us to give away ourselves, all of our love—absolutely everything=TO HIM!!! This is the essence of true adoration and love of God.

So Jesus doesn’t demand that each of us immediately give up all our material possessions (we of course need some of these things to live) nor does He expect all of us to become a religious and live in a monastery. But He does demand that we give him everything in an act of adoration and that we use our wealth in such away that we do not forget the heavenly Father who gave us these possessions, showing Him our love and gratitude by sharing what He gave us, our wealth with those who are less fortunate than we. He does however, expect for each one of us to give up our wealth in this way; to give up thinking that we are independent, that we possess everything we need apart from God, to give up our pride, our hearts of stone, our opinions and most importantly our self wills. In this, Jesus wants us to become poor in spirit, realizing that everything, everything we possess is a gift—even our faith, even our very existence.

The gifts we receive from God are so vast and so generous. There will come the day however, when every single one of us, no matter how much or how little we possess, will have to do in a material way what Jesus asks; someday we will definitely have to give away even our material possessions. Each one of us we will have to give up everything we have at death, we can take nothing material with us. The only thing that we can take with us is our love for Christ or sadly our lack there of—the amount of love we possess at the end of our life, is the amount we posses for all eternity.

We like the young rich man can not justify ourselves, for God alone can justify us. The truth is in the end we are all poor, we are all sinners and in need of redemption and salvation through the blood of the cross. While it is true we will not be saved without good works, without following the Ten Commandments, our good deeds alone will not save us, only Jesus can save us. We have to detach ourselves from our self sufficiently and our stuff, and ask, beg Jesus for the grace to attach ourselves to Him, love Him above all things and trust in Him alone..

In our temptation to be discouraged (for we too like the rich young man have many possession), we should not let our face fall, give up hope and walk away sad. One of the Fathers of the Church, commenting on this passage, said that he believed that this rich young man may have been none other than St. John himself before his conversion. St. John walk away sad, but as he walked away began to reflect where true riches are really found. St. John later repented, sold all that he had and gave it to the poor and then came back to follow Jesus fully, giving his life totally and completely to God in loving sacrifice, remaining with Jesus faithfully even to the foot of the cross. Grace can indeed transform us, can indeed turn our hearts of stone into hearts for love alone.

It was at the cross that St. John gave everything he had and was to Jesus. He was able to do this because he made his offering to Jesus through Mary—totus tuus. Through Mary, John’s heart was elevated and united to the divine Love and Heart of Jesus-to Jesus Himself. In, with and through Jesus John become one with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. From that moment on it was no longer John who lived but Jesus who lived in him. He stilled lived but from now one his life was one with Jesus. Perfect love offers everything, everything to the beloved. We too must grow in love to the point that we like St. John offer everything, EVERYTHING, Jesus, in Total Trust

It is at the Holy Mass that we like St. John can offer our hearts, our everything, our riches to Jesus through Mary. Let us ask her to take our heart and place it on the paten and to do so with perfect trust in her Divine Son. She will help us to offer everything, to cut any strings that hold our heart from God. From her hands Jesus will accept our hearts as if they were His mother’s. Our hearts, our lives will then be transformed as we receive, truly, the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, our greatest treasure…we and our lives will then become living Icon’s of the Sacred Merciful Heart of Jesus. And through us, God will renew the face of the earth.

Let us end with this prayer:
"Heavenly Father, I thank You that my family has enough and more than enough. Help us use our possessions according to Your wishes. Help us to share with those who have little or nothing. Help us to support Your work in the world. Help us to put our trust in You and not in our bank book. Help us to be gracious with others as You have been generous with us." But most importantly, with the power of the Holy Spirit, help us at this Holy Mass to offer it all back to you, along with our hearts on this altar of sacrifice in union with the Heart of your Son Jesus Christ. Through the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Help us to open our hearts and souls to receive Jesus fully when we receive Him in Holy Communion. Then we will possess the greatest of all riches you our Go and Jesus Your only Son in the unity and love of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let us offer this prayer as we offer the bread and wine asking our Father to accept our sacrifice of our riches, our hearts, along with the sacrifice of His Son which He has already accepted. God bless you.