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Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Eternal life is not "an inheritance, something that is obtained by right", but Jesus' "free love." Pope Francis recalled this during his third week of convalescence at Santa Marta in the Vatican. He published the text of the catechesis prepared for the General Audience that the Pontiff was supposed to preside over today.
Continuing the cycle of catecheses dedicated to the life of Jesus, read in the light of Jubilee themes, the Bishop of Rome continued the series of reflections on the encounters that took place between Christ and the figures of his time narrated in the Gospels, focusing today on the encounter with the rich young man. This is, we read in the text of the catechesis, a person who "has no name. The evangelist Mark presents him simply as “a man” who has observed the commandments ever since his youth but who, despite this, has not yet found the meaning of his life. He is searching for it."
The Pope compared the choices made by this person to a ship about to set sail for the open sea: "It can be a wonderful ship, with an exceptional crew, but if it does not pull up the ballast and the anchors that hold it down, it will never manage to depart. This man has made himself a luxurious ship, but he has stayed in the port!!".
Yet it is he who "runs to meet" Jesus. But in the dialogue, the Pontiff observed, the verbs he uses are linked to duty: "What is striking is that this man does not know the vocabulary of gratuitousness! Everything seems to be owed. Everything is a duty. Eternal life is for him an inheritance, something that is obtained by right, through meticulous observance of commitments. But in a life lived in this way, although certainly for good purpose, what space can love have?".
In the face of "his fine resume", the verb that the evangelist Mark uses "is very significant: “looking at him”. Precisely because Jesus looks within each one of us, He loves us as we truly are. Indeed, what will He have seen inside this person? What does Jesus see when He looks within every one of us and loves us, despite our distractions and our sins? He sees our fragility, but also our desire to be loved as we are". Jesus’ love is gratuitous: exactly the opposite of the logic of merit that has beset this person", the Pope added.
"The proposal Jesus makes to this man is to change his way of living and relating with God" because "he recognizes that inside him, as in all of us, something is lacking", or "the desire we carry in our heart to be loved. There is a wound that belongs to us as human beings, the wound through which love passes". And to overcome this lack, the Pontiff noted, "we do not need to “buy” recognition, affection, consideration: instead, we need to “sell off” everything that weighs us down, to make our hearts freer. There is no need to continue to take for ourselves, but rather to give to the poor, to provide, to share."
The other invitation is "not to stay alone. Jesus invites him to follow Him, to be within a bond, to live a relationship. Indeed, only in this way will it be possible to emerge from his anonymity. We can hear our name only within a relationship, in which someone calls us. If we remain alone, we will never hear our name spoken, and will continue to be that “man”, anonymous. Perhaps today, precisely because we live in a culture of self-sufficiency and individualism, we find ourselves more unhappy because we no longer hear our name spoken by someone who loves us freely." And yet "this man does not accept Jesus’ invitation and stays alone, because the ballast of his life keeps him in the port. His sadness is the sign that he has not managed to leave. At times, what we think are riches are instead only burdens that are holding us back", he concluded. (F.B.) (Agenzia Fides, 9/4/2025)
