Fr. Michael Williams

The man in today’s gospel is searching for the meaning of life; a life that goes beyond the limited confines of this world. The man asks Jesus, ‘Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

Deep down in every human heart the same question emerges, ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ The reason this question emerges is because we were made for eternal life by God. Deep within our heart God has given us the understanding that we are made for eternity.

The first chapter of the book of Wisdom points toward this reality that we were made for eternal life when it says: “Death was never of God’s fashioning; not for His pleasure does life cease to be; what meant His creation, but that all created things should have being”. God made us for eternal life.

We can tend to think of death as something natural, because it is so familiar to us. But death is not part of God’s original purpose; it came into the world through the sin of our first parents-the Original sin. St Paul tells us in one of his letters ‘the wages of sin is death’. Unfortunately, God’s original purposes for humanity have gone awry because of human sin, and we can see this all around us.

The man in the gospel today goes to Jesus because he senses that this ‘good master’ can give him, what deep down, he most earnestly desires: ‘eternal life’. And that is the reason why countless people throughout history, and on every continent, approach Jesus. They are seeking ‘eternal life’.

They are going to the right man, because He is also God. Jesus came into the world to restore God’s creation to its original purposes and to give us back the eternal life, which has been lost through sin. Jesus restores creation through His Resurrection: “Dying He destroyed our death; Rising He restored our life”. Every Sunday we rejoice at Jesus’ victory over sin and death. Every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection, the victory of life over death, which we hope to experience in Heaven.

Jesus shows us the road that leads back to eternity. First of all He tells us to follow the commandments: ‘You must not kill; You must not commit adultery; You must not steal; You must not bring false witness; You must not defraud; Honour your father and mother’. Adam had disobeyed God- or sinned- with disastrous consequences, but Jesus says we should obey God because that way we will flourish. Imagine how better the world would be if God’s commands were observed.

But Jesus challenges ‘the man of great wealth’ in the gospel to go further, ‘to give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’. He also challenges us to give up unnecessary attachments that are a stumbling block to eternal life. It is interesting to note the man ‘went away sad’, despite having ‘great wealth’. Wealth and possessions don’t bring deep happiness. I remember reading the Dali Llama explaining that he was once staying with a wealthy European family in a beautiful house, but he noticed that the bathroom cupboard was full of tranquillisers.

Jesus calls us all to a deeper conversion of life. To not put our faith in the material things of this world, but to put our faith in Him, who is ‘the way, the truth and the life’.