​The Gospel for this Sunday, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is taken from St Mark Chapter 10 and tells us what happened when Jesus was interrupted with a man’s nagging question.

Jesus had just been to the man’s locality and had presumably done His normal preaching, teaching, and healing in the public gathering areas of that locality. Whatever Jesus said has caused a stirring within the man.

We might ask, why didn’t he ask this question earlier?

It is a real interruption to the schedule Jesus had, and we aren’t told what the consequences of setting out then and there actually were, eg not getting to the next place before night fall; having to stay an extra day where they were, missing a meal or celebration, maybe spending the night on the ground instead of under a roof. But Jesus doesn’t complain, He patiently listens to the man, and gives him His full attention.

Unlike the question the Pharisees put last week, this question is real and authentic, and we’ve all heard someone ask a version of it.

He asks, ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’

In other words, What’s the minimum I have to do to get a dead-cert entry pass for heaven?
Or, ‘If there a one-stop, fix, set-and-forget way to obtain eternal life?’

This man is thinking in terms of a transaction, like buying a plane ticket or a car.

But this question must have been niggling at him for a while.

I can imagine an internal battle going on inside him:
Do I really want this question answered?
How much do I want this question answered?
What if I don’t like the answer?
This Jesus person is the only person I’ve come across who could really answer this question.
So are you going to approach Him or not?
Does my desire for the answer outweigh the possible public notoriety for asking it?

He’s possibly been wrestling with himself for days, ever since Jesus showed up; and it is only the thought of missing out on ever getting the answer - because Jesus is leaving and unlikely to ever return - that eventually pushes him into action but at the last possible moment.

Jesus now seeks a bit more background before He answers. It isn’t quite like answering a question with a question as He did with the Pharisees, but it is similar.

From the 10 commandments, Jesus selects only those that are about our relationships with each other, and not in our memorized order either, No 6 You shall not kill; No 7 You shall not commit adultery; No 8 You shall not steal; No 9 You shall not give false witness, an interesting spin on No 10 You shall not defraud; and No.5 Honour your father and your mother.

The man replies, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my earliest days’; in other words: ‘I know these are not enough, otherwise I would not have come to You, I sense much more is required, but I don’t know what that ‘much more’ is, and I do want to know’. To be capable of desiring the ‘much more’, the man would have to be feeling restlessness and dissatisfaction with his current life.

Aha! It is God Himself who has been stirring within this man if he is able to verbalize this truth.

Jesus gazed at him with ‘agape’ love and gave him the momentous answer; ‘Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have wealth in heaven; then, come, follow Me’.

‘Come follow me’ is what Jesus said when He invited each of the apostles into special relationship with Him.

Later on, when the man has left, Jesus speaks to His own, and He gazes at them with the same ‘agape’ love.

Answering like this, Jesus tells the man (and us), that heaven isn’t an object to be purchased, but a relationship with Him that requires 100% ongoing commitment.

For this man, used to purchasing all he desires through material wealth, the price of eternal life is far too high. Purchasing objects needs zero emotional involvement; entering an apostolic relationship with Jesus needs total emotional commitment, and total commitment from every other area of his life.

High calling, high reward, requiring high personal cost.

Who can make and keep such an audacious commitment to the person of Jesus?
Only those called and empowered to do so by God.

This is what sets the vocational call to consecrated, religious, or priestly life beyond the regular baptismal call to holiness.

As Jesus promises, it is this 100% giving of themselves to Him, the leaving everything and following Him, which gets rewarded a hundred-fold in this life, and in eternal life.

Notice that Jesus leaves the man completely free to decide, He neither badgers, coerces nor entices. He just offers an invitation.

We know that the man walked away sad. He was offered the Great Treasure, an apostolic calling, yet he rejected it.

It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was saddened as well. Who knows? If this chap had said ‘Yes’ maybe today he would be a household name of the same magnitude as Peter or Paul, instead of a nameless cautionary tale.

Where does that leave us?

Firstly it leaves us praying for those whom Jesus is calling into an apostolic commitment to Him, that they may be given the heavenly help to say their total Yes to Jesus.

Secondly it makes us take a good hard look at our own commitment to Jesus, and the things that we are, and aren’t, willing to give up for His sake.
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Finally if you have been experiencing that same restlessness, dissatisfaction, and sense that there must be ‘much more’, and that you want ‘much more’, then put the terms ‘Vocation Director’ and the name of your nearest regional or capital city into an internet search, and give that person a call.

Thoughts and ideas have been coming to me, and at the present time I do not see the way clear to bring them into being. Maybe you can, if I tell you about them.

The second one, for want of a better name, I have dubbed 'listening to the call'. The rest of them will be in later blog-posts.

This is the situation:

My parish has the most extraordinary cohort of parishioners well into their retirement years in their late 70s, 80s and 90s. They are wonderful people who constantly inspire me. My guess is that your parish is quite similar to mine.

However, most people don't get to that age without a regret or two. Of these the most serious would be not acting upon the persistent dreams and desires that God gave us. None of us wants to come face to face with the Lord at the time of our death knowing that we haven't done anything towards what He consistently asked of us.

There is a line from one of the Proclaim 2014 Conference workshops that stood out for me when I had to retype it earlier this week: 'Ask them what they would like to do. The answers may surprise you.'

The standard way parishes ask for help is to either a) plead in the parish bulletin or from the microphone near the end of Sunday Mass or b) to run a stewardship campaign with a survey form that lists a large number of parish ministries and asks parishioners to tick the boxes of those things they are interested in. Sadly those survey forms tend not to be acted upon fully – except for the one or two parish ministries that the parish administration most wanted to get people involved in. 'Ethel, go through those forms and bring me only the ones that ticked catechist or senior server'- that kind of thing.

What we don't do is find out what God has already placed on the hearts of His people. I'd like that to change.

Let's face it, most of us do nothing about the persistent dreams and desires God gives us because we haven't got a clue how to begin.

For example what if every time you heard stories about homeless children on the streets that you felt a strong desire to do something, so much so that you decided decades ago to pray for them on a daily basis. That alleviated some of that Godly-pull for a while, but it's still there and you don’t know how to act upon it. So you've done nothing.

What if your parish did something different, and asked you to write down on a postcard-sized piece of paper your name, some contact details, and that call in your life that you regret not acting upon – no matter how wacky it might sound?

For all you know there could be seven other people in the parish who have the exact same life regret. The parish could put you in contact with each other and arrange for a mini bus trip to visit an existing ministry to homeless street children. That might spark an idea you could all work on together locally. Or you could decide as a small group to go back and visit once a month and to each take an interest in one of the children and pray for them and write letters to them.

Perhaps that life regret was not getting to Nepal, and now your health is beyond it. But your parish might be able to put you in contact with missionaries in Nepal to whom you could give moral support and prayer support or there might be some Nepalese immigrants in your parish that you could befriend.

Perhaps that life regret was not learning Hebrew. For all you know there might be two others in the parish with the same life regret that you could get together with and form a friendship and easy stages study group with.

To make this work would require quite a lot of hours of co-ordination from parish admin or parish volunteers, but it would be joyful work because it would be helping people finally start acting upon some of the life-long calls that God has had upon their lives.

In just naming and writing down that life regret on the postcard, already grace would be active. To then talk with another parishioner about that life regret and brain-storm easy and simple ways of doing something about it, it would suddenly seem far more possible and achievable.

Can you imagine the joy and the relief that would be released by finally doing something concrete about that Godly pull in your life? I can. That's what I'd love to see happen for all my beloved parish friends, because it is never too late to do something about answering God's call. St Helen and St John XXIII did extraordinary good in their 80s.

I entrust this idea (which hasn't gone away in several weeks) to the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady Help of Christians that she may arrange for its implementation in the places where God wants it to happen.