A reading from the holy gospel according to Mark: Peter began to say to [Jesus],
“Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell
you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father
or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will
not receive a hundredfold now in this age - houses, brothers and sisters,
mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come
eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
(Mk 10, 28-31) This is the word of the Lord.
This gospel reading is
sort of framed between two stories. Jesus was “setting out on a journey”, he
was walking, therefore. A young rich man ran up to him and asked him “What must
I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered that he should obey the
commandments. When the young man answered that he had kept them all since his
youth, Jesus looked at him and loved him, and he challenged him to give up everything
he had to follow him [Jesus]. The young man “was shocked and went away
grieving”. The disciples were shocked too for Jesus told them how difficult it
was “for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” They said to one
another: “Then who can be saved?”
