Referring
to the biblical story of the rich youth, it is very characteristic that the author
listens only to half of Christ's answer ("give all your property to the
poor") adopting it thus like if it were a recommendation to
a general love for the suffering. But the youth should give his property in order to be free to love and follow
Christ himself. We can expect some meaning in this distinction,
because He had said, that we are going to have the poor and the suffering but not
Him when He won't
be among us. This makes me think that the youth should indeed have the
time to find Christ and talk to Him and ask Him whatever he wanted to ask. He had to find the time even if he was looking after
millions of poor and suffering people. He should leave all of them.
And the
youth somehow did it. He forgot his perfection (does it matter if it was a
law-given perfection?) and he found Him, and, as they say, Christ loved him, very much. He
was saying to the
apostles how difficult it is for a rich man to enter paradise - all that
time loving especially that rich boy very much. Why?
When Christ himself grieves over His friend's death, you must pause a little. You must think a
little. What is He doing? For what reason? He is going to resurrect this
person right now! Living the death not by any concepts of "blessing" or
"conviction" or whatever, not in
the cold light of judgment, but in the simple, common, vulgar pain of missing
someone that you love: then the cold light of judgment will, perhaps, become
able to depict some shadows of a life rich enough to make us say: "he loved".
If it won't be able, even better! You
might resurrect this person yourself!
And thus
the Apocalypse happened, and the sheath
is still in the box and Jean is still outside, in their light. They
see him in their afternoon sun, but he doesn't see them. There is a guess, and nothing
more - and what is more, he wouldn't even like to live among those white shadows!
