Twenty-EighthSunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus Christ is the true wisdom
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, ” …. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.'” He replied and said to him, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to (the) poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ” ….It is easier for a camel to pass through (the) eye of (a) needle than for one who is rich to the kingdom of God.” They were …. astonished and said among themselves, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.” Mk 10,17-27
A few decades ago Giorgio Torelli published a book entitled “being rich”, which I read in one overnight. It tells the story of Marcello Candia, a milanese industrialist who, from being a successful entrepreneur, at some point decided to sell the company and, using the proceeds of the sale, to build a leper colony in the Amazon. A few years later we had the opportunity to hear him in person when, in our Saronno, he held a conference to narrate his story and the new life he had embraced. He was happy, satisfied from having sold everything he had and giving the proceeds to the poor people. We go now on this page of the gospel and we meet the figure of a rich man, but unquiet, because everything he owns does not fill his heart. Jesus then, moved to compassion by his concern, suggested that he does what two thousand years after Dr. Candia will do. If the man was created to be happy, we wonder, in the light of these two episodes, what the true wisdom is and where it lies. We must conclude that it lies in the ability of donating and giving ourselves. This seems the secret of the happiness and it reaches the highest peak in Jesus Christ who, for the salvation of the world, has given his life on the cross. Paul says: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1Cor 1,22-24). Indeed, there is a wisdom which shines in the great book of the nature; there is that one which comes from the culture and the science; there is the wisdom which is hidden in the unfolding of the history, of which the Holy Scriptures are rich, but none of these completely fill the human heart. The true wisdom does not depend upon the knowledge, the understanding and the possess, but it is that one which Jesus Christ showed us, giving himself in the revelations, in the miracles and on the cross: he is “wisdom of God”. But for us, men of the New Testament, who live in the era of the Church, where the source of the wisdom lies?…. It resides in the Holy Spirit and in his infinite capacity to reveal the mystery of Christ, enabling us to see with different eyes the books of the creation, of the culture, of the science, of the history and of the Holy Scriptures. The wise man is a spiritual man: but when it comes the moment to pass from the wisdom to the happiness, the secret lies also today in the ability to donate and to give ourselves, as in every moment God does in the person of the Holy Spirit.