“There is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age.”

          We encounter today another teaching that defies the logic of our Lord’s contemporaries. After He describes the difficulty our attachment to worldly possessions presents for eternal salvation, the disciples “were exceedingly astonished,” and ask Him, “Then who can be saved?” Our Lord’s contemporaries saw wealth as a sign of divine favor. If the wealthy, who seem to be the most favored by God, cannot be saved, then it seems like the rest of us stand no chance at all. Thus the extreme surprise of the man who wants to inherit eternal life. That poverty would be the one thing that he lacks, would never have crossed his mind.

          This is one of the saddest episodes of the entire Scriptures. Surely the ingratitude and mockery of the crowds at Pilate’s palace and at Calvary was far more wicked. But there is something gut-wrenching about this man’s sadness. St. Matthew tells us that he is a “young man.” He must have been a man of great promise. Young, but already wealthy and powerful, but assiduous in his observance of the divine law. This is the sort of man you’d be thrilled for your daughter to marry, the man you’d be intensely proud to have as your son. This is one of the “good ones.” And yet he goes away sad.

          Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us about this episode. Matthew tells us that he is young, and Mark adds a singular detail: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” This is the only place in the entire New Testament where our Lord looks at one singular person, and loves him. Who can possibly imagine what it would be like to be pierced by that singular gaze? To be the one upon whom our Lord looks with a love described no where else in the Scriptures? How could anyone say no? To my mind, the sadness of this passage is exceeded in gut-wrenching sorrow only by our Lord’s cry of abandonment on the Cross and David’s lament over Absalom.

          The obstacle here is his attachment to his possessions. The word could also mean “lands” or “properties.” What if, though, the root of his rejection is not just an over-attachment to material possessions? We struggle to part with our money or other possessions because they become a source of security. The kind of radical generosity to which Christ calls this young man, in a singular invitation made from His great love precisely for him, is a risk.

          It is well documented that people are increasingly risk-averse, especially young people. After decades of helicopter parenting, over-sheltering, and excessive regard for physical safety, many complain that young people don’t want to take risks.

          I am not entirely convinced that this is true. Young people today take a lot of risks – they’re just not ones that their parents and grandparents easily recognize. Most of their risks take place by doing things that seem on the outside to be entirely safe. Sitting on the couch and staring a small rectangular piece of metal, glass, and Chinese semiconductors does not seem like a risky behavior. However, the immense social pressures that are applied at young ages through electronic social media are hard for those of us who did not grow up in the age of the smartphone to imagine. Sure, we dealt with peer pressure at school and with our friends, but it did not follow us home and ding and vibrate in our pockets all through the day and night.

          The more time people spend online, the more risk-averse they tend to become in the real world. Not taking appropriate risk means that we miss out on opportunities for personal growth and become increasingly dissatisfied with ourselves – hence the epidemic of depression and anxiety we are experiencing. If we never take risks, we will never really be happy.

          We want our children to be free to take the right risks, the good risks that are conducive to their personal fulfilment and ultimate happiness. We want them to take the risk of being a witness to their Catholic faith, and to be ready for that moment when Christ likewise looks upon them with great and singular love and calls them to the life He has prepared for them. To do that, they need to be okay with taking risks, and their appetite for appropriate risks needs not to be exhausted by the risks of social media.

          For those who are ready to respond to the Lord’s invitation, to take that great risk of following Him, an incredible reward awaits. “There is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age.” This is the really incredible part: The reward for those who will accept this singular invitation to follow the Lord in this radical way, in this way beyond the calling extended to all Christians, following a special mode of life in which the one who has been penetrated by the Lord’s unique gaze of love clings to Him alone, the reward promised is not just eternal life in heaven. For those receiving and responding to this invitation – contained most perfectly in the religious life and the priesthood – the reward is now in this present age as well.

           Of course, this doesn’t mean that if you sell all your possessions and become a priest or religious, God will give you one hundred times more money or goods. It means that those who respond to this invitation to dedicate their entire lives to the Lord will receive something of far, far greater value than what they have given up even in this present age. This does not mean it is an easy life. The reward will come hand-in-hand “with persecutions,” but the one who experiences persecution for the sake of his faith in Christ will encounter even then a power that enables him to thank God for drawing near to Christ in the midst of suffering.

          So, what is this hundred-fold that is given even in this present age to those who accept the singular invitation to follow the Lord even more closely, imitating more perfectly His own way of life as a religious or priest? Visiting our school’s classrooms on Thursday, I shared with them pictures from my first Mass of Thanksgiving as a priest. On that day, I would have said that that Mass alone was my hundred-fold, and years of discernment and seminary were worth it for that day, that Mass alone.

          But there is a danger there, because the hundred-fold God gives to those accepting this invitation is not a feeling or the ability to do something. It is Him Himself. Every morning when the priest puts on his cassock, the tradition of the Church directs him to pray: “The Lord is my portion and my chalice, it is You who will restore my inheritance.” This is the challenge and invitation given in the gaze of love to that rich young man: Will you have Me alone as your inheritance? Will I be enough for you?

          Who was that rich young man who went away sad, the one whom only St. Mark recalls receiving a penetrating gaze of singular love? It could be that only St. Mark recalls that detail, because the rich young man was St. Mark himself. We know that Mark’s mother had a home large enough to serve as a gathering place for the early Church, and some Biblical scholars have even speculated that that home was the site of the Last Supper. It could be that the rich young man came back, rejecting the Lord’s invitation only for a while, eventually ready for the second chance that the Lord so willingly offers. But there too, there was a risk. To come back to the one who has offered so much and been turned down, would have been extraordinarily difficult, extraordinarily risky.

          To raise Christian children is not only to keep them safe from the assaults of the Evil One, from the allures of this world. It is to form them to be ready to take a risk, the right risk, to be ready to respond to the Lord with St. Peter’s words: “We have given up everything and followed you.”

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

XXVIII Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXIV