What must I do?

Monday in the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle I

Jgs 2,11-19; Mt 19, 19,16-22

Nine years ago this month, just a few months before entering seminary, I went to Ethiopia on voluntary work with the Missionaries of Charity. Before leaving Malta, it had been suggested to me that I try and ask the Mother Superior of the community for a short meeting in which she might give me some hints about spiritual life in the tradition of Mother Teresa. Admittedly, it was hard to get hold of Mother Superior because she was a very busy woman! However, as my month of voluntary work was drawing to an end I finally got the opportunity to speak to her. I asked her, "What would you suggest that I do to deepen my spiritual life?"

She immediately answered, "Do not let anything come between you and Jesus!"

At first I thought that it was a trite reply to a trite question but as time passed I realised how much wisdom this little piece of advice held.

Like the young man we all know when there is something between us and Jesus. That is why Jesus turns the question about "what is the good thing to do" to "the source of all goodness, God." In fact, sometimes even our very pride of doing good can come between us and God and we miss the while point of doing good.

Like the young man in the story we might be making a lot of good things however Jesus asks more from us not because he is selfish or likes to see us get discouraged in front of the demands of our spiritual life but because he believes so much in us. Jesus wants to see us free enough to follow him.

The young man had the enthusiasm, which we admire, but Jesus was seeing even more than that. Jesus wanted to see him a man free of his possessions - not necessarily without this possession, but free from his possessions to be free for Christ. In the words of the Mother Superior, there was something between himself and Christ which was hindering him from really deepening his relationship with God.

The question therefore comes almost automatically, "What is hindering my relationship with Christ? Is there anything between me and Jesus? What is it and how am I going to work on it to get rid of it?"

Interestingly, St Ignatius asks us to find some time to sit or kneel before the crucifix and ask ourselves these three questions: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I to do for Christ?

The good life brings with it happiness, which not only do we experience but also those around us because in freeing ourselves we also free others. When we free ourselves from riches, we are in a better position to share our resources with others. When we free ourselves from possessing others, we are granting freedom to these people in whose regard we have become possessive. When we free ourselves from success and power, we others can appreciate and enjoy our joyful and humble attitude.

If we have in some way kept something between us and Jesus, now is the time to free ourselves from it, to give it away, and then we can be sure that we would have obtained eternal life starting as from here and now. Once again, Jesus wants us to push past out limits. This time round, we are invited to make a move from simply doing good to being good. And this change can come only from the heart.