The Rich Young Man – What Can We Learn . . .

(By Fr. Dexter Brereton)

What can we learn from the Rich Young Man? Is it that we should not be wealthy, or is it that in spite of our wealth, they should not rule us, but the Lord God should be our greatest treasure; far above all other?

Mark 10: 17 – 30

I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, brothers, sisters, father, children or land for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not be repaid a hundred times over…

In the days when I was in the Holy Ghost Fathers seminary at Arouca, our director at the time, Fr Joe Harris told us stories of the early beginnings of the Spiritan mission in Paraguay. Stories also came from other visiting Spiritans who were also there at the time like the late Fr Phil Howard. Among the striking stories I heard from Phil and Joe was one in which, at the beginning, the fathers in Paraguay spent a lot of time visiting parishioners on two accounts – firstly out of sheer pastoral zeal – secondly out of the fact that they did not have much food in their house and this was a way of getting a free meal (!)

Stories like these took me back to my own time as pastor in Pont Sonde in Haiti when, for the first time in my life I lost an entire night’s sleep stressed out by the fact that I REALLY did not know where our next meal was coming from and our resources were dwindling. No, ‘poverty is hell’ as the great calypsonian Shadow once sang. It is not something to be deliberately cultivated and in many ways, material insufficiency is an evil.  I could understand why so many, particularly in ‘wealthy’ countries like the United States are taken aback when Pope Francis stridently proclaims that the unfettered pursuit of wealth is ‘the dung of the devil.’ Many of these would claim that capitalism, the main engine of wealth in Western society has brought many out of poverty. Pope Francis was taking aim at greed however. This is what Jesus meant by saying that wealth poses an almost insurmountable obstacle to the Kingdom of God, that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle that for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”

There remains however, a positive aspect in these experiences of extreme want, of material need. They provide us with a “school of spirituality” at which we learn dependence on God and detachment from “things.” This is the positive teaching of this scripture passage. This is what Jesus means when he says I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, brothers, sisters, father, children or land for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not be repaid a hundred times over… what follows, once we have “left” our  personal possessions and even important family relationships is that we enter into a a much better relationship- with other people and with material possessions, our life is immeasurably enriched. I can proudly say that in many ways, Phil Howard, who almost starved in the early days of the Trinidad mission in Paraguay was one of the freest men that I have ever known. He was generous to a fault and could easily put up with “not having” from time to time. This same spirit also marked other Spiritans who were there like the late Fr Neil Rodriguez. I sensed in these men a certain freedom and integrity or better yet, a great integrity rooted in the fact that they were so ‘free’ of the need for, and dependence upon, possessions.