Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
What a wonderful question this un-named man of the Gospel asks! He asks with such fervour, such frankness, such daring! No wonder Jesus loved him! Surely we also feel a certain instinctive attraction towards him. He puts his question not just for himself, but on behalf of all of us; on behalf of humanity as a whole. He asks on behalf of those who have understood that the good things of this world can never satisfy us completely; on behalf too of those who have had some glimpse, however tiny, of the greatness, the goodness, the beauty, the holiness of God. Such a glimpse, or insight, or conviction tells us that the object and the fulfilment of all our best and deepest desires must be God alone, and life with him. To seek and to find God is of overriding importance for all of us: more than all other things in this life whatever.
The man on the floor before Jesus was asking for eternal life. That seems like asking for a lot. Is it asking for too much? No; because precisely this is what we were made for; and precisely it’s what God wants to give us: if only we will open our hearts to receive it. So the great desire that was driving this man was a very good one. And more even than he knew, he had come to the right place to seek its satisfaction. Because - we know - in Jesus Christ our Lord, and in him alone, we have access to God, and to eternal life, and to our own perfect fulfilment.
In the Prologue to his Rule, St. Benedict puts an analogous question, but, as it were, the other way around. He pictures the Lord crying out amidst the crowd: “Who here wants life?” Benedict supplies the response with which he presumes his readers will at once identify: “I do!” What then to do? As the Lord puts it, and as St. Benedict puts it using different scripture texts, but with the same import: the first requirement for someone who wants “true and perpetual life” (Holy Rule Prol 17) is to keep the moral law; to follow the commandments of God.
That’s actually not a small requirement. But is it all? No of course it’s not! Jesus looked upon him and loved him says the Gospel (v. 21). Eternal life is always sheer gift; never something we somehow earn. We enter it already when we become aware of the gaze of Jesus, full of love, and directed personally, individually towards each of us; and when we understand that we must respond to that at any or whatever cost. Yes, of course in the first place this involves avoiding evil and pursuing what is good (Prol 17; Ps 33:14). But above all it means responding to the love of Jesus: loving him, following him, belonging to him, living in him, taking up his cross: conforming ourselves to his death, in order that we may share in his resurrection (cf. Phil 3:11; Rm 6:5 etc). For those who hear this particular call, it also involves renouncing all worldly possessions. For St. Benedict, the call of Jesus meant embracing monastic life: a life of prayer; of total commitment in vowed poverty, chastity and obedience; a life of stability within a community; a life in which the communion of the Catholic Church is lived out in all the details of every day: her doctrine, her sacraments, her worship, her discipline, her treasures of liturgy and art and literature.
But is all this just too difficult? Is it even possible? Jesus says in today’s Gospel: all things are possible with God (v. 27). Please God they became possible eventually also for the rich young man; so that he who went away sad, came back somehow rejoicing, and at last, unencumbered by his stuff, received his dearest wish.
The Saints bear witness that following Jesus to the end is not just possible, but even easy, and delightful, because of his love: motivating us, inviting us, sustaining us, drawing us, driving us (2 Cor 5:14). “Progressing through this way of life”, says St. Benedict, “we run the way of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love” (Prol 49). Or again: “What could be sweeter than this voice of the Lord calling us? Behold in his love the Lord is showing us the way of life. Let us therefore gird up our loins with faith and the performance of good works, and let us set out on this journey, through the guidance of the Gospel, so that we may deserve at last to see him who has called us into his Kingdom” (Prol 19-21).
One particularly noteworthy way in which monks express their dedication to Christ, and their desire for eternal life, is through music. Out of every Benedictine monastery comes Chant: ever repeated, never wearisome; alternating back and forth; rising and falling; proceeding from silence, and leading back into silence; marking the time; hastening the time; in principle united, peaceful, gentle, beautiful; carrying both singer and listener ever onwards towards God, borne along as if on an ever flowing river of blessing.
Today is the principal feast of our holy Father St. Benedict. “Blessed Benedict; blessed both by grace and by name” - “gratia Benedictus et nomine” as we read - Benedict, the man who is blessed by God, and who responds by blessing God at all times (Ps 33:1); in his heart and with his voice; Benedict, the man from whom blessings flow in ceaseless abundance for his sons and for the whole Church and world.
In a prayer we recite here every day, we’re reminded how St. Benedict, loved by God in a special way, died “with his hands raised to heaven”. It’s the gesture he prescribes for the Suscipe, sung by the monk as he makes his solemn vows. The hands are open, ready to receive, ready to give. It’s a gesture of receiving and returning blessing. It’s also a gesture of longing, of stretching out for the prize that lies ahead (Phil 3:13). And to prepare himself to receive that prize at last, Benedict was strengthened one last time with Holy Communion. As Jesus said once in a synagogue in Capernaum: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life; and I shall raise him up on the last day (Jn 6:54).