If there is one thing that we humans fear most, one thing that we truly desire to avoid, it is the reality of death. We fear that terrible day, that day of wrath in which our souls will be separated from our bodies and we shall be no more on this earth. We will do anything to either delay that foreshadowed meeting or to even prevent it completely. Many physicians today offer us pipe dreams of being able to live forever while computer scientists tell us that we will be able to transcend this physical limitation and live on not in the flesh, but in the machine. But all of these things are bound to fail, and just as the leaves this time each year change their colors and die, so too will each one of us pass and reach “the undiscovered country from whose bourn” only one traveler has returned.
Jesus never promises that we shall avoid death, but He offers to us the opportunity of gaining eternal life. And so we hear in our Gospel a young man ask our Lord about what must be done to gain eternal life. The initial response from Jesus is rather surprising: He seemingly rebukes the questioner for calling Him “good” and declares that “no one is good but God alone.” Some will see this as a denial by Jesus of His divinity, but that is not the case. It is, rather, a different way of acknowledging His divine nature. No human being can be called completely good due to the perpetual struggle within our nature between the grace and call of God to holiness and the weight of temptation which tries to drag us down and separate us from God. Only God is completely and essentially good because He is the source of all goodness. To call Jesus “good” is to acknowledge that He is God: that He is the Son of the God the Father, “God from God, light from light, true God from true God” as we profess every Sunday. Since Jesus is God, He can truly be the Good Master who knows completely and from within His being the right path to eternal life.
This right path which Jesus proclaims in answer to the young man’s question seems surprisingly simple: obey the commandments. That’s it?!? That’s all one has to do? Yes, it is, but it is not as simple as we may think. We must plumb the depths of the commandments to understand what God asks of us in them. Elsewhere in the Gospels, we hear Christ clarify what is meant by the commandments. Adultery, for example, means more than avoiding the single act of adultery, but each time we engage in a lustful glance or a lustful thought, we are committing adultery. To kill does not mean merely murder in the body but also through our words and thoughts about others and to others. The commandments, then, must be heeded not only in letter but in spirit.
If we want to have eternal life, we must live out the commandments completely, not merely at the basic level. What we do in this world echoes unto eternity. Every decision we make draws us towards either heaven or hell. Each choice brings with it the ultimate consequence: either drawing us to the good God who awaits in heaven or pushing against and away from that same God and plummeting towards hell. Jesus throughout the Gospels never promises a free ticket to us, nor does He assure us that it will be easy. What He tells us is what it will take to gain heaven or to lose it all in hell.
But the young man has already been doing all this, and desires more. He senses that what he has been doing is not enough, and he is correct. Jesus tells the young man to sell everything, give it away, and to follow Him. What God desires most of us is a contrite and humble heart which loves God totally and completely. A robot can obey commandments. A dog can obey commandments. It is not enough merely to obey the commandments. Our hearts must be aligned towards God and not towards anything else.
Many people throughout the history of the Church have taken these words to their deepest meaning and have left everything to follow Christ. Saint Anthony the Great and Saint Benedict left the world behind and retreated into the wilderness to meditate on the Scriptures and to live a life of prayer and recollection, attracting many men and women to follow them into the monastic vocation. Saint Francis of Assisi is famous for his radical renunciation of money in favor of Lady Poverty. While not all of us are called to this most literal of interpretations, all of us are called to live in a spirit of poverty in which we are not possessed by material goods or wealth but truly belong to God.
This is only possible through the grace of God, as Jesus affirms to the disciples. Without God’s help, we will not overcome the weight of wealth which burdens our hearts. With God’s help, we are able to be transformed from a people weighed down by wealth or power or fame or whatever it is which we treasure in our hearts to a people who rise to meet God face to face, loving Him who first loved us. How great, indeed, shall be the reward for those who are free for love, free for holiness, free for eternal life!
Let us pray to God that our hearts may be purged of all that holds us down. Saint John of the Cross wrote that
The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in it will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly. (The Ascent of Mount Carmel 11)
May our hearts be cut by God’s grace from everything which keeps us from flying. May we seek the aid of Mary through the Rosary in being freed from sinful possession so that we may soar up to heaven. Let the word of God pierce our hearts so that we may be free. Let us desire the wisdom which is worth more than silver or gold, the wisdom which demonstrates to us that the only abiding treasure we can ever possess is the infinite and loving God who offers us eternal life.
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