“COME! FOLLOW ME!”

“What do I still lack?” This is perhaps the most beautiful question in today’s Gospel. That young man is good, he observes the commandments, he desires eternal life, and yet he feels that something is still missing in his heart. He lacks the courage to leave everything in order to choose the Everything. Jesus does not simply ask him to give up his riches: He asks him to free his heart from everything that takes the place of God. Because one can possess little and still be enslaved by many things, or possess much and have a heart completely given. True wealth is not what we have in our hands, but the One we have in our heart. And then come those two wonderful words: “Come! Follow me!” Jesus does not invite us toward emptiness, but toward Himself. Every renunciation made out of love is not a loss: it is space we free so that God may fill it with a greater joy. The young man goes away sad because he prefers to hold on to what he possesses rather than allow himself to be possessed by Love. And it is precisely here that the Gospel questions us too: “What is that one thing to which I am so attached that I still cannot hand it over to Jesus?” Lord, free us from everything that prevents us from following You with an undivided heart. Give us the freedom to leave behind what passes away in order to choose You, who remain. Grant that our true treasure may be in Heaven and that, when You say to us, “Come! Follow me!”, we may answer without fear: “Here I am, Lord, I choose You because I love You infinitely.”