The letter to the Hebrews affirms that “everything is naked and uncovered” in the eyes of God “. The word and the gaze of Jesus reveal the desire of the person who asks him what to do to inherit eternal life. Above all, they reveal his attitude, which leads him to trust in what he believes he possesses and “can do”. This is the real wealth from which he cannot break away. Not only his possessions, but what they symbolically represent for his existence: the claim to achieve a full life by trusting in himself. In fact, at the end of the episode, the successful following of the disciples corresponds to his failed following. At the center, between the failure of the rich man and the success of Peter and his companions, is the affirmation of Jesus: “Impossible for men, but not for God. Because everything is possible for God”. True wealth, the first reading announces, lies in prudence, in wisdom. Wise is also the one who, instead of what he can do, knows how to entrust himself to the possibility of God. The rich man does not accept the proposal of Jesus and has a sad face, a sign of a life that remains in sadness because withdrawn into itself, relying on what he already knows and possesses, on his own projects and resources. In the rich, therefore, a more radical and insidious temptation manifests itself: the inability to separate from wealth because of not knowing how to give up on oneself.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey