REFLECTING on the Sunday Gospel of Jesus and the rich man, Pope Francis said this man Jesus meets is a mirror for us to “test our faith”.
“Reading this, I test myself on my faith,” Pope Francis said.
Jesus “tested” the man in three steps, he said.
First, he listened to the question of “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Pope Francis said the man’s verbs – “must do” and “inherit” pointed to his mindset.
“Here is his religiosity – a duty, a doing so as to obtain; I do something to get what I need,” he said.
He says the rich man sees this as “a commercial relationship with God, a quid pro quo”.
“Faith, on the other hand, is not a cold, mechanical ritual, a ‘must-do-obtain’,” he said.
“Faith is a question of freedom; it is a question of love.”
Pope Francis said God is not an accountant and our relationship with Him is not commercial.
The second part of the test was how Jesus helped the rich man to understand who God is.
The text literally reads – “Jesus looking upon him loved him” (v 21).
“This is God,” Pope Francis said.
“This is where faith is born and reborn – not from a duty, not from something that is to be done or paid, but from a look of love to be welcomed.
“In this way Christian life becomes beautiful if it is based not on our abilities and our plans; it is based on God’s gaze.
“Is your faith, is my faith tired? Do you want to reinvigorate it? Look for God’s gaze: sit in adoration, allow yourself to be forgiven in Confession, stand before the Crucified One.
“In short, let yourself be loved by him.
“This is the starting point of faith – letting oneself be loved by Him, by the Father.”
Third, Jesus invited him to take action. And that action would be to give away his riches.
The rich man comes to Jesus saying he has not killed, stolen or committed adultery.
He rattles off the list of the Ten Commandments.
Pope Francis said faith “cannot be limited to ‘do not’, because Christian life is a ‘yes’, a ‘yes’ of love”.
“A faith without giving, without gratuitousness, without works of charity, makes us sad in the end – just like that man whose ‘face fell’ and returned home ‘sorrowful’, even though he had been looked upon with love by Jesus in person,” Pope Francis said.
“Today we can ask ourselves – ‘At what point is my faith? Do I experience it as something mechanical, like a relationship of duty or interest with God? Do I remember to nourish it by letting myself be looked at and loved by Jesus?’”
