Twenty Eight Sunday

What good must I do to have eternal life?” can only be found by turning one’s mind and heart to the “One” who is good: “No one is good but God alone” (Mk 10:18; cf. Lk 18:19). Only God can answer the question about what is good, because he is the Good itself. To ask about the good, in fact, ultimately means to turn towards God, the fullness of goodness. Jesus shows that the young man’s question is really a religious question, He is the source of man’s happiness. The Ten Commandments lay the foundations for the vocation of man fashioned in the image of God; they prohibit what is contrary to the love of God and neighbor and prescribe what is essential to it. God wrote on the tables of the Law what men did not read in their hearts. The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, far from abolishing or devaluing the moral prescriptions of the Old Law, releases their hidden potential and has new demands that arise from them. It does not add new external precepts, but proceeds to reform the heart, the root of human acts, where man chooses between the pure and the impure so that with faith, hope, and charity are formed and with them the other virtues. If you want to be perfect… The way and at the same time the content of this perfection consist in the following of Jesus, once one has given up one’s own wealth and very self. This is precisely the conclusion of
Jesus’ conversation with the young man: “Come, follow me” (Mt 19:21). It is an invitation to the marvellous grandeur which will be fully perceived by the disciples after Christ’s Resurrection, when the Holy Spirit leads them to all truth (cf. Jn 16:13).