The Question That Starts a Journey (#’s 6-10)
“What good must I do to have eternal life?” (Mt 19:16)
It’s a question that rises from an honest heart. And it’s the question Pope John Paul II places at the very center of Veritatis Splendor. The one who asks it is young, sincere, and searching—often called the “rich young man.” He runs to Jesus and kneels before Him. He isn’t trying to trap Jesus with clever words. He wants to know the truth.
We all start there, in one way or another. A desire for goodness. A sense that life should mean something. A feeling that eternity matters. This is the ground from which moral life begins—not with guilt or rules, but with longing.
The Pope writes that this young man’s question is “inescapable” (7). Every person, whether they say it aloud or not, carries it within: What must I do? What is the path to happiness, to fulfillment, to salvation? In Jesus’ response, we find the framework of the moral life—not as a list of demands, but as an invitation to follow.
Jesus first points the young man to the commandments. He doesn’t dismiss the Law; He affirms it. Moral truth is not invented by us—it is revealed. And that’s a comfort. Because it means we don’t have to make up our own meaning, or guess at goodness. God has spoken. His commands are not arbitrary—they’re like a trellis that helps a vine grow upward toward the sun.
But Jesus doesn’t stop with the commandments. When the young man says he has kept them from his youth, Jesus looks at him with love and says, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have... and come, follow me” (Mt 19:21). The moral life doesn’t end with “doing good things.” It leads to Christ Himself. To follow the moral law is to follow the Lord—not from a distance, but in discipleship.
John Paul II says that in this moment, Jesus “shows that the commandments lead to Him, and that only in communion with Him does the moral life attain its full meaning” (8). In other words: you can’t separate morality from relationship. The law is fulfilled in love—and that love has a face.
This is why Christian morality isn’t a cold system. It’s a path. And it begins with a question, asked in freedom, answered with love.
But as we know, the rich young man goes away sad. He wants eternal life, but can’t let go of the things he owns. What keeps us from following Christ more fully? What attachments weigh us down? We all have them. And we all, at some point, walk away.But Jesus never stops looking at us with love. That look is where the journey starts again.