A commentary on Mk 10, 17-30, XXXVIII Sunday O. T. (October 11th 2015)
We go on Reading Mark, who shows Jesus approaching Jerusalem, where there’ s going to be a life or death confrontation between Jesus with his Kingdom of God’s proposal and the Political-Economical-Religious System of that time. Then, as it happens now, the power of the world was in the hands of corrupted people who used to deride any ethical value and, even more, despising may simple people who were exploited and abused in a culture based on the divinization of money and richness.
In this social context, Mark makes us assist to a dialogue between Jesus, one “somebody” and the disciples. Let me make a few comments on this dialogue:
– What to do to reach the fullness of life? (or “eternal life”, as it was put buy the one who knelt down before Jesus). We all make that same question, even if not always use those same words. What shall I do to be happy, to feel “alive” and to enjoy the fullness of sense for my life?
– A basic honesty. On that time, as in ours, there were, among corrupted people, also many honest people, persons that were trying to live their lives with honesty, following the commandments of the Old Testament or those of their own religion that, on my view can be reduced to one: “Be honest to yourself and to others”. And that is not a little matter.
– The call to do a step more and to trust in God. Jesus respects and admires this person who was able to live with honesty, but He discovers in her look and attitude a deeper desire for something else. Is she is coming to see Him, it means that she has had a glimpse of a “pearl of great value” (the Kingdom of God). I think that we go sometimes through a similar experience: We try to live honestly, trying to do as much good as we can. But we are aware of our limitations and, deep in ourselves, we wish something more; in that case, Jesus is telling us: Do not be satisfied with a moral of the minimum, dare to “sell” what you have (it may be an excessive trust in money, or your pride or your image before others), trust in God and “buy” the “pearl of great value”, that is, allow yourself to live fully in God’s love.
– The uneasiness. The person that went to meet Jesus and the disciples remained bewildered by His proposal. They think that they had already done quite enough and that what Jesus is asking, apart from being impossible, is unnecessary. If you allow me, I share briefly a personal witness; I remember that, when I decided to leave my family house to become a missionary, my parents asked me: Why do you have to do that? It’s not enough to be a good person here? … In fact, one can be good enough in many ways and places. But the point is not to be just “good” or to “do enough”, but lo love without measure and to “live fully”.
– A jump into the emptiness. Well, all that we are saying in the previous paragraph seems “too much”, “exaggerated”, “impossible”… And really such it is, till God acts and “makes everything possible”. He has made it possible for a group of fishers to leave behind their fishing nets and go around the world preaching the newness of the Gospel; He has made it possible for Ignatius of Loyola to abandon his military career to become a Christ’s “soldier”; He has made it possible for Daniele Comboni to go far from his little village in Italy and enter into the wild dessert of Africa…
– The fullness of life. The secret of so many disciples that followed Jesus on that journey is that, trusting in the Master and in God, “everything becomes possible”, they were able to reach an unsuspected fullness of life that is not only “religious” but fully human. I think that many of us have mete people like that in our own time.
Today, as we celebrate the Eucharist, I renew my trust in the One who calls me to a higher standard of life, knowing that He will never be won in generosity.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Roma
