In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Our Lady, Queen of Religious.
Praise be to God.
Saint Joseph.
Our patron saints and guardian angels.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The first reading talks about the writer of sacred scripture, the one inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Talks about how wisdom from God, that gift of the Holy Spirit, was a greater treasure than material wealth.
Gold, or any other treasure, or precious.
Material item in this world is to be a countered mire, he says, mud, compared to the wisdom that God gives us.
That gift of wisdom, as we know, is that ability to see things as God sees the world.
And all of, you might say, how everything is in God's plan.
The wise man is one who is able to see beyond this world, and to see God's supernatural,
outline, and his plan, for not only themselves, but for all of creation.
And is able to fall in line, you might say, with God's will, and he is the wise man.
He's also the one who's able to see the wisdom of our Lord's words, when he says, you know,
unless you lose yourself, you know, unless you lose yourself, you won't find yourself.
And all these other paradoxes of the world.
And all these other paradoxes of the scriptures and of the gospel, the wise man is able to see things as God sees them.
And that's truly a great grace that God shares with us, his ability to see things as he sees them.
And because when he talks about in the gospel today, the rich young man comes to our Lord and asks a very important question.
Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
You know, he had, he was on the right track.
He wanted to know, what must I do to be happy for all eternity, eternal life, and how can I obtain that eternal happiness?
And our Lord, you know, goes on and recounts to him, well, keep the commandments.
You know, that that's the first place we have to start when we want to be happy in this world, is we have to live his commandments.
And the young man says, well, I've done all these things.
And our Lord said, okay.
You're lacking in one thing, then, if you've been able to keep all these, the basics, you know, and you really want to strive and make sure that you obtain eternal life, then you must do this.
Sell what you have, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, then come follow me.
The church has always understood that our Lord at that time was then inviting him to what is called the evangelical life.
And if you want to put it in a more civil way, he was inviting him to live the gospel life in its fullest.
Because evangelical life has come from the Greek for the good news.
So our Lord said, this is, if you want to truly be happy and be sure that you'll obtain eternal life, then go sell everything, give to the poor, and come follow me.
The church has always understood that as the evangelical councils of the gospel, of, you know, the gospel of the gospel.
living poverty, chastity, and obedience out of love for God.
He was recommending to him what has later become known in the church
as consecrated life or religious life.
And the church has always understood that that vocation to religious life,
to consecrated life, is the highest vocation that God can give to someone.
It's because it already points to eternity.
You know, marriage is for this world.
Marriage is for the procreation and education of children,
and it's a beautiful vocation.
And Pope Benedict last Sunday said that marriage is a gospel in itself,
that those who live the faithfulness and fidelity of married life
are in one sense proclaiming the gospel by that living out their sacramental bond.
Love of Christ for his church and the church's love for Christ
is symbolized and visualized.
You might say in faith when we look at a married couple.
But when you look at religious life, that is truly the life of heaven being lived here on earth.
Anticipating what is the life of resurrection,
that everybody in heaven will be living like the angels, our Lord told those who talked to him,
you know, when they put that test to him about the woman who had seven husbands
and when she dies, who will be her husband in heaven?
And our Lord said,
you don't understand that that's only for this world marriage.
In heaven you'll live like the angels.
You will be living like a religious is.
Everybody in heaven will be poor, but they'll have everything.
Everybody in heaven will be chaste like the angels.
And everybody in heaven will be obedient to God.
But that's why it has that great character
because it's already anticipating.
The life of heaven already here on earth.
And that is one of the greatest witnesses of the religious vocation.
Long before a religious does any apostolate or a consecrated person does anything,
the works that they do are secondary to that first great witness they give.
And that is to the fact that they are, that they are, that they be.
That they are being already a sign of eternal life.
And when you look today, you know,
whenever you mention religious life to young people,
you know, they almost look at, they say,
oh, that'd be a curse if God gave me a vocation like this.
We're so materialistically minded in our world today that somehow if I'm not,
you know, if I'm not gratifying myself or if I don't have someone in my life,
you know, because we've become so saturated in our world that somehow
if I'm not satisfying my sensuality,
that somehow I'm not going to be fulfilled in life,
they lose sight of the greater things.
And the things that our Lord is saying,
to leave everything for him and to embrace this kind of life is not a curse.
God's not giving you something less.
He's giving you something more if you're willing to give yourself to God.
How can God be less generous to someone who gives everything to him?
And how would he, therefore, not give you more, as he even says to Peter?
You know, Peter's like saying, well, what about us?
We've given up everything to follow you.
As if somehow he's afraid he's going to get cheated.
You know, what's in it for us?
And our Lord says to him, amen, I say to you, he's making a vow, amen.
I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mothers,
mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel,
who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age,
houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands
with persecutions and eternal life in the age to come.
He's saying, you know, look at the saints.
They had so many brothers and sisters in the Lord.
They had so many people who were taking care of them like mothers, you know, had spiritual mothers.
Saint Francis said that,
every mother of every friar is a mother of all the friars.
And that they would receive lands, you know,
who would think that I could ever live in a place like this if I were living in the world?
You know, people say, wow, they really have a nice place.
They have beautiful scenery and everything.
But that's, if they want to live a life of poverty and give everything up,
God's going to take care of them.
Not that they should be looking for that, first and foremost,
but he says, if you abandon everything for my sake,
you'll receive all kinds of things, but in a different way,
in a supernatural way.
He'll reward you.
And our Lord is not a false advertiser either,
because he even tells you in the small print what's there.
You know, unlike the, you know, the commercials.
They tell you, oh, this greatest drug that's out there.
And then at the end, they all tell you all the bad things right before they end the commercial.
Oh, by the way, if you're a human being, better not take this,
because you're going to get all these sicknesses.
You're going to get all these sicknesses or illnesses or watch out.
But our Lord, he even tells us you're going to get all these things with persecutions.
He even puts that in there to remind you that it's not going to be just all fun.
All the persecutions are even the most important thing,
because that's what makes us most like Christ.
That we're going to suffer along with him.
And then finally, eternal life in the age to come.
Our Lord is trying to paint very clearly the picture that he has
for those who want to follow him to the fullest.
And I hope that young people today, when they think of religious life,
oh, I hope God doesn't give that to me.
Know that they would rather see and have an open heart to see
that that would be the greatest thing that God could do for them
and give them as a vocation to live that life.
But we pray that in an age in which everything else is going to change,
we pray that in an age in which everything is so geared towards this world,
the materialism and the, you know, they don't realize
that what they're really wanting, the young people and people in general,
want to give their lives to something that is more important than them.
They want to make an impact in life.
They want to be, really do something that will change this world in which we live.
And so what do they look to? They look to politics.
Or they look to this or that.
When really,
they really want to make an impact on the world in which they live.
They really want to do something which is greater than themselves.
Then look to what our Lord says about taking up the evangelical councils.
I can't think of anyone who's done more to impact the world than the saints of old,
like Mother Teresa of Calcutta,
Saint Francis of Assisi,
Blessed John Paul II,
did so much to impact and really move people.
Because he first and foremost,
they gave themselves totally to Christ
and allowed him to be their all.
That's what our Lord is asking of those whom he gives this vocation of the evangelical councils.
He's asking, give me everything you have
and come follow me.
And you will receive more, not only in this world, but eternal life to come.
Let us pray today in a special way.
Our Lord spoke about, last week,
about the beauty of the married state.
Today we hear on this Sunday,
the beauty of and the exalted state of the religious life,
consecrated life,
that young people today will have
the wisdom that really comes from God
to see past the false glitter and the false gods of this world
and to see that really,
if they want to be happy,
lose all, waste their life on Christ,
and they will not waste it at all.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.