Following the Spirit's Call or the Call of the Gospel

 In today's first reading, Wisdom 7: 7-11, the author prays for prudence and pleaded for the spirit of wisdom.  He says to us:  I preferred her more than power,  and I "deemed riches nothing in comparison to her, nor did I liken any priceless gem to her; because all gold, in view of her, is a little sand, and before her, silver is to be accounted mire. Beyond health and comeliness, I loved her, and chose to have her rather than the light, because the splendor of her never yields to sleep. ...[A]ll good things together came to me in her company, and countless riches at her hands."

Would you and I pray for wisdom and prudence beyond all else:  beyond secular wealth, power and prestige? beyond unneeded material things: a yacht, a second house in a popular tourist location, a luxurious vacation or for whatever we lust and do not really need to live a life of loving service, compassionate care, and justice?

In today's Gospel,  Mark 10: 17-30, a man ran up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" After a significant dialogue with the man, Jesus' final answer to was: "'Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will  have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.' At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions."  Further on in the passage, Jesus says to us:  "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 the present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come."

Men and women have left "brothers or sisters or mother or father" in response to the Spirit's call, the call of the Gospel,  to embrace the single lifestyle or to  marry or to enter the priesthood or consecrated religious life or to become deacons. Or, they may have done so against the will of loved ones. Jesus response:  "Amen, I say to you...[you] will...receive a hundred times more now in the present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come."