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Prayers for Vocations at Carmelite Monastery, Kew

On Saturday 26th April, The World Youth Day Cross and Icon arrived at the Carmelite Monastery in Kew to form part of a night of prayer for Vocations. Below is the Homily given by Bishop Tim Costelloe during the Liturgy.

In the gentle peace of this chapel tonight, in the presence of each other gathered as we are around the Lord present in the Eucharist, and gathered too around the cross and icon, symbols of World Youth Day and all it might mean for us, I would like to invite us all to try to listen carefully for the voice of the Lord as he speaks to us. In the gospel we have heard him say to us, “If you want to be a follower of mine you must renounce yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” We are all here this evening because we want to follow him. Many of us are here because we are trying to understand just what it is he is asking of us. We are trying to enter into the silence of our own hearts, to read what is happening there, and to glimpse, if we can, the Lord’s call inviting us to something more, although we may not yet be sure just what that “more” is. One thing we can be sure of, I believe, is that whatever the Lord is asking of us we will need courage and faith. We will need humility and patience. We will need energy and persistence. We will need the grace and presence of the Lord. The gospels tell us of one young man who heard the Lord calling and who wanted to respond. He was rich, and he was enthusiastic, and he was willing to be challenged. “Good master,” he said to Jesus, “What must I do to enter eternal life?” As this story is told for us in the gospel pages, the young man is presented as someone who has been captured by the fascination of Jesus. There is something about the Lord which draws the young man to him. And so he asks his question. It is really a question about life. “What must I do to have the fullness of life?” Jesus responds with a simple answer. “You must keep the commandments.” And when the young man asks Jesus which ones, Jesus tells him: “Don’t kill; don’t commit adultery; don’t steal; don’t bear false witness; Honour your father and mother; love your neighbor as you love yourself." And then the rich young man says something quite incredible: “I have kept all these commandments since I was very young.” It’s no wonder that the gospel tells us that on hearing this Jesus looked at him and loved him. This really is a fine young person, faithful, honest, really worth admiring. Every time I read this story I feel a little uncomfortable. I’m not sure that I could have given Jesus the same reply if he had been speaking to me. And yet, of course, the gospels make it very clear that the love of the Lord for us does not depend on how good we are or how well we have managed to avoid sin. The Lord loves us as we are, even as he hopes that we can become more fully and more faithfully who and what he has created us to be. The young man is generous and idealistic: he wants to do more and to be more. And so he asks the Lord, “What else can I do?” And again the Lord replies, “If you wish to be perfect, if you really wish to be all that you can be, then there is one thing that you lack. There is one thing that is holding you back. Go and sell all that you own, give the money away to the poor, and then come, and follow me.” And what happens? The gospel tells us that the rich young man’s face fell, and he walked away sad, for he was a man of many possessions. This must be one of the saddest stories in the whole gospel tradition. A fine young person, full of enthusiasm and idealism, standing on the threshold of the rest of his life, has an incredible gift held out to him. “Come, follow me, throw your lot in with mine, journey with me into the future, let your life and mine be entwined in a new and intimate way.” And the young man is unable to rise to the challenge because his life is already entwined with other things and he just can’t find it in himself to let go. We hear nothing more of this rich young man. All we see is his back as he walks away from Jesus, head bowed in disappointment and perhaps even in embarrassment. He wanted to hang on to his life as he knew it, and in doing so he lost the chance at life in all its richness. He didn’t understand that the cross he was asked to carry was a cross that would set him free. Each of us is the rich young man. Each of us has a goodness, an idealism, a dream of being more and doing more. Even if we can’t all say that we have kept all the commandments since our earliest days, I’m sure we can say that we have tried, and that we are sorry for the times we have failed. And just as Jesus looked at the rich young man and loved him, so he looks at us this evening with love. We are here because we too want to ask him, “What more can I do?” Tonight Jesus looks into our eyes and says to us the same words he spoke to that rich young man. “There is one thing you lack. There is one thing that is holding you back. If you want to say “yes” to me, if you want the fullness of life, then go ……” and what? For the rich young man it was his many possessions. It may not be that for us. But each of us will know that deep within us there is something that has the potential to make us, like the rich young man, walk away from Jesus, sad and embarrassed, but unable, at the end, to give our wholehearted “yes”. Those who want to hang on to their life will lose it; but those who are prepared to let go of their life as it now is, for the sake of Jesus and his gospel, will save it. Jesus looked into the eyes of the rich young man with love. Tonight let us allow Jesus to gaze into our eyes with love and speak to us from his heart: “If you want to be perfect, there is one thing you lack … for my sake and the sake of my gospel, are you ready to let go?”

You can read about the details of this event in the upcoming edition of Vocations News.

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