Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Our Inheritance

Peter began to say to Jesus,
'We have given up everything and followed you."
Jesus said, "Amen, I say to you,
there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters
or 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.

But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first." Mark 10

Eternal life is not simply a matter of entitlement but of allowing oneself to be possessed by Jesus who is himself our rightful inheritance.  Jesus wants to give us everything; he wants to give us his very self in the now that is the Kingdom. For the eternal life we long for is not a commodity for the future but a relationship, a relationship of love with the living God present in Christ, here and now. “Make haste and do not delay,” Jesus might have said. “I am worth all you will leave behind.”

Initial from an ancient Cistercian manuscript.