The Greatest Adventure of All

by Kaitlyn Willy (BCC Chaplain’s Apprentice)

The Gospel reading this weekend was Mark 10: 17-30. This is one of those readings that I think we read a lot and miss the point. Often, we look at the rich young man and imagine him to be selfish, he doesn’t want to give up everything he owns and so he won’t gain entrance to heaven. It’s like this great attack on the rich, but then those of us without money are safe. NOPE! That is definitely not what God has in mind. In fact, I think that this is a reading that can speak to us at our core if we make ourselves open to it.

I don’t know about you, but this Sunday I started to feel uncomfortable sitting in the pew even before the priest got to the selling everything part. After all, the rich young man says that he has observed the commandments from his youth and is so comfortable with them that he is willing to ask what more he can do. Can you say that you have followed these commandments with that kind of faith? I certainly can’t. Even if we try to be perfect (it would be impossible for us to actually be perfect) and follow these laws completely, Jesus calls us to sell what we have and give it to the poor. Now, that certainly doesn’t seem fair! We’ve done all this work and tried so hard to follow these commandments and now we have to sell everything? No wonder the rich young man went away sad! I think we always imagine that he did not in fact sell his possessions—a failure, rare in Christ’s ministry.

I would like to think that if Jesus appeared before me and asked me to sell all that I have and give it to the poor, I would react at least a little better than the rich young man did, walking away without a word, his head hung down in sadness. But then I have to take into consideration my own priorities and recognize that they might be different from those of the rich young man. I don’t really value wealth above other things (if I did, I probably wouldn’t be a campus minister). I certainly don’t treasure money or possessions above my faith. While I might like my iPad a little too much to live in complete simplicity, I do like things being simple. My ideal house is a tiny house with 117 square feet (see Tumbleweed Houses if you don’t know what I’m talking about) where I wouldn’t be able to fall into the temptation to buy things because there would be no place to put them. I’m not really a money person. My biggest downfall in regards to materialism is probably my book collection, but even that I would give up (albeit sadly) if Jesus asked. But let me tell you what I do value so much I wouldn’t want to give it up for Jesus: my relationships.

St. Ignatius of Loyola talks about radical detachment: “We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one.” According to Ignatius, when something is taken away from us, we should be detached enough that the loss cannot shake our trust in God. We accept that all things are for the greater glory of God. Ad maiorem dei gloriam!

When I moved to Indiana to go to Notre Dame, it was really hard for me to leave Dallas: a place where I was loved, where I had made the connections and friendships that were my most prized possessions. It’s one thing to leave home for college. The relationships that sustained you in your childhood, the family and friends who have known you your whole life, those generally survive distance and time. But the relationships you make in college don’t always make it. Sure, I still have my best friends (my bestie even texted me this morning and woke me up), but some of the relationships I had in college necessarily had to change: we didn’t bump into each other in the hall anymore; we didn’t see each other in the cafeteria. Other than the occasional facebook status, I might not hear from some friends at all for months. This was difficult for me at first because a lot of my relationship with God had been centered around the people in my life with whom I ate, studied, hung out, and prayed. In moving to Notre Dame, I had to learn which prayers I said because my friends said them and which ones I said because I needed to pray them.

Last year, speaking with seniors who were getting ready to graduate, it seemed that this was the same fear that they had. How do you worship without the community that has helped you grow? How do you live a life as a Catholic without the BCC?

Friends, God can ask us to give up or change our relationship with many different blessings in our lives. For the rich young man, it was money. For me, it was my community and friends from UD. Fortunately, before I left UD, my spiritual director taught me about detachment. I learned that sometimes even the greatest blessings (like community) have to be taken away in order for us to grow. My friends and community at UD had become my safety blanket and as long as I clung to it, I could easily resist the change that God was calling me to. Sometimes, we must be brave enough to let go of our desires, our treasures and our loves in order to become who God calls us to be.

As is said so many times in Scripture, “BE NOT AFRAID!” I can tell you from experience that although these times of transition and letting go are hard, once we give up the things that we cling to (money, friends, habits, desires, plans, and sometimes even beliefs) we can become ourselves-- not someone else, not someone entirely different, but someone who is even more ourselves than we ever dreamed of being. I am more me now than I have ever been and I will continue to grow into myself the more I let God change me. These changes are never easy, but if we have the courage, we can embark on the great adventure of becoming ourselves. We become not only ourselves, but ourselves in relationship with the God who knows us more intimately even than we do: the greatest adventure of all.