The second reading tells us that
“the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb
4:12). It really is: God’s word is not merely a set of truths or an edifying
spiritual account; no – it is a living word that touches our lives, that
transforms our lives. There, Jesus in person, the living Word of God, speaks to
our hearts. The Gospel, in particular, invites
us to an encounter with the Lord, after the example of the “man” who “ran up to
him” (cf. Mk 10:17). We can recognize ourselves in that man, whose name the
text does not give, as if to suggest that he could represent each one of us. He
asks Jesus how “to inherit eternal life” (v. 17). He is seeking life without
end, life in its fullness: who of us would not want this? Yet we notice that he
asks for it as an inheritance, as a good to be obtained, to be won by his own
efforts. In fact, in order to possess this good, he has observed the
commandments from his youth and to achieve this he is prepared to follow
others; and so he asks: “What must I do to have eternal life?”
Jesus’s answer catches him off
guard. The Lord looks upon him and loves him (cf. v. 21). Jesus changes the
perspective: from commandments observed in order to obtain a reward, to a free
and total love. That man was speaking in terms of supply and demand, Jesus
proposes to him a story of love. He asks him to pass from the observance of laws
to the gift of self, from doing for oneself to being with God. And the Lord
suggests to the man a life that cuts to the quick: “Sell what you have and give
to the poor…and come, follow me” (v. 21). To you, too, Jesus says: “Come,
follow me!” Come: do not stand still, because it is not enough not to do evil
in order to be with Jesus. Follow me: do not walk behind Jesus only when you
want to, but seek him out every day; do not be content to keep the
commandments, to give a little alms and say a few prayers: find in Him the God
who always loves you; seek in Jesus the God who is the meaning of your life,
the God who gives you the strength to give of yourself.
Again Jesus says: “Sell what you
have and give to the poor.” The Lord does not discuss theories of poverty and
wealth, but goes directly to life. He asks you to leave behind what weighs down
your heart, to empty yourself of goods in order to make room for him, the only
good. We cannot truly follow Jesus when we are laden down with things. Because
if our hearts are crowded with goods, there will not be room for the Lord, who
will become just one thing among the others. For this reason, wealth is
dangerous and – says Jesus – even makes one’s salvation difficult. Not because
God is stern, no! The problem is on our part: our having too much, our wanting
too much suffocates us, suffocates our hearts and makes us incapable of loving.
Therefore, Saint Paul writes that “the love of money is the root of all evils”
(1 Tim 6:10). We see this where money is at the center, there is no room for
God nor for man. Jesus is radical. He gives all
and he asks all: he gives a love that is total and asks for an undivided heart.
Even today he gives himself to us as the living bread; can we give him crumbs
in exchange? We cannot respond to him, who made himself our servant even going
to the cross for us, only by observing some of the commandments. We cannot give
him, who offers us eternal life, some odd moment of time. Jesus is not content
with a “percentage of love”: we cannot love him twenty or fifty or sixty
percent. It is either all or nothing.
Dear brothers and sisters, our
heart is like a magnet: it lets itself be attracted by love, but it can cling
to one master only and it must choose: either it will love God or it will love
the world’s treasure (cf. Mt 6:24); either it will live for love or it will
live for itself (cf. Mk 8:35). Let us ask ourselves where we are in our story
of love with God. Do we content ourselves with a few commandments or do we
follow Jesus as lovers, really prepared to leave behind something for him?
Jesus asks each of us and all of us as the Church journeying forward: are we a
Church that only preaches good commandments or a Church that is a spouse, that
launches herself forward in love for her Lord? Do we truly follow him or do we
revert to the ways of the world, like that man in the Gospel? In a word, is
Jesus enough for us or do we look for many worldly securities? Let us ask for
the grace always to leave things behind for love of the Lord: to leave behind
wealth, leave behind the yearning for status and power, leave behind structures
that are no longer adequate for proclaiming the Gospel, those weights that slow
down our mission, the strings that tie us to the world. Without a leap forward
in love, our life and our Church become sick from “complacency and self-indulgence”
(Evangelii Gaudium, 95): we find joy in some fleeting pleasure, we close
ourselves off in useless gossip, we settle into the monotony of a Christian
life without momentum, where a little narcissism covers over the sadness of
remaining unfulfilled.
This is how it was for the man,
who – the Gospel tells us – “went away sorrowful” (v. 22). He was tied down to
regulations of the law and to his many possessions; he had not given over his
heart. Even though he had encountered Jesus and received his loving gaze, the
man went away sad. Sadness is the proof of unfulfilled love, the sign of a
lukewarm heart. On the other hand, a heart unburdened by possessions, that
freely loves the Lord, always spreads joy, that joy for which there is so much
need today. Pope Saint Paul VI wrote: “It is indeed in the midst of their
distress that our fellow men need to know joy, to hear its song” (Gaudete in
Domino, I). Today Jesus invites us to return to the source of joy, which is the
encounter with him, the courageous choice to risk everything to follow him, the
satisfaction of leaving something behind in order to embrace his way. The
saints have traveled this path.
Paul VI did too, after the
example of the Apostle whose name he took. Like him, Paul VI spent his life for
Christ’s Gospel, crossing new boundaries and becoming its witness in
proclamation and in dialogue, a prophet of a Church turned outwards, looking to
those far away and taking care of the poor. Even in the midst of tiredness and
misunderstanding, Paul VI bore witness in a passionate way to the beauty and
the joy of following Christ totally. Today he still urges us, together with the
Council whose wise helmsman he was, to live our common vocation: the universal
call to holiness. Not to half measures, but to holiness. It is wonderful that
together with him and the other new saints today, there is Archbishop Romero,
who left the security of the world, even his own safety, in order to give his
life according to the Gospel, close to the poor and to his people, with a heart
drawn to Jesus and his brothers and sisters. We can say the same about
Francesco Spinelli, Vincenzo Romano, Maria Caterina Kasper, Nazaria Ignazia of
Saint Teresa of Jesus, and also our Abruzzese-Neapolitan young man, Nunzio
Sulprizio: the saintly, courageous, humble young man who encountered Jesus in
his suffering, in silence and in the offering of himself. All these saints, in
different contexts, put today’s word into practice in their lives, without
lukewarmness, without calculation, with the passion to risk everything and to
leave it all behind. Brothers and sisters, may the Lord help us to imitate
their example.
HOLY MASS AND CANONIZATION OF THE BLESSEDS: PAOLO VI, OSCAR ROMERO, FRANCESCO
SPINELLI, VINCENZO ROMANO, MARIA
CATERINA KASPER, NAZARIA IGNAZIA DI SANTA TERESA DI GESÙ, NUNZIO SULPRIZIO. HOMILY
OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS. St Peter's Square, Sunday, 14 October 2018.
