Jesus invites us to follow him


Go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me, Jesus said to this young man who had many possessions. And the words that should have communicated to him an immense joy, left in his soul a great sadness: afflicted by these words, he went away sad. "The sadness of this young man leads us to reflect. We may be tempted to think that possessing many things, many goods of this world, can make us happy. Instead, we see in the case of the young man in the Gospel that the many riches became an obstacle to accept the call of Jesus to follow him. He was not willing to say yes to Jesus, and not to himself, to say yes to love, and not to flee! True love is demanding. If we notice in our heart a sadness, it is possible that the Lord is asking us for something and we refuse to give it to him, that we have not finished freeing our heart from attachments to follow him fully. It is perhaps the moment to remember the words of Jesus at the end of this Gospel passage: Truly I say to you, whoever leaves house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel, will receive a hundred times more - houses, and brothers and sisters, and mothers and children, and lands, with persecutions - and in the age to come eternal life.


...Come and follow me. How they would all be waiting for the young man's answer! With this word - follow me - Jesus called his closest disciples. This invitation meant accompanying him in his ministry, listening to his teaching and sometimes a more leisurely explanation, imitating his way of life.... After the Ascension of Jesus to Heaven, the following is not, logically, to accompany him along the roads and villages of Palestine, but to remain where he met us, in the midst of the world, and to make his life and his teaching our own, to communicate with him through prayer, to keep him present at work, at rest, in joys and sorrows... to make him known with the joyful witness of an ordinary life and with the word. To follow the Lord entails setting out on a journey, that is, the requirement of a life of commitment and struggle to imitate the Master. "In this effort to identify with Christ, I have distinguished four steps: to seek him, to find him, to treat him, to love him. Perhaps you understand that you are in the first stage. Seek him with hunger, seek him in yourselves with all your strength. If you act with this determination, I dare to guarantee that you have already found him, and that you have begun to treat him and to love him". He never ceases to call us to undertake the path of holiness by following in his footsteps. Now, Jesus also lives and calls. He is the same one who traveled the roads of Palestine. Let us not miss the opportunities he offers us.


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