THE GREAT REFUSAL - IMPULSIVE AND SHALLOW

STRENGTH. " We are like tea bags - we don't know our own strength until we're in hot water" (Sister Busche)

A young man of great wealth and high position seems suddenly to have been seized with a conviction that he had neglected an invaluable opportunity, and One who could explain to him the true meaning of life was already on His way to depart from among them (Luke 18). Determined, therefore, not to be too late, he came running, breathless, eager and exclaimed: "Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may inherit life?" Jesus, as the youth wanted to do something, tells him merely of those of the Second Table, for, as has been well remarked, "Christ sends the proud to the Law, and invites the humble to the Gospel".

"Master, replied the young man in surprise, all these have I observed from my youth". He was not content with the common place; he aspired after the heroical, or rather thought that he did. Therefore Jesus gave him an heroic act to do.  "One thing, He said, you lack. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me".

It was too much. The young ruler went away very sorrowful - he preferred the comfort of earth to the treasures of heaven; he made, as Dante calls it, "the great refusal" (l'ombra di colui che fece per viltate il gran refiuto -  the shade of him, who made through cowardice the great refusal)( Dante, Inferno, iii.60) (Farrar)

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