Today's Gospel reading is one of the most intriguing mystery stories in the New Testament. The man has no name: he comes out of nowhere and apparently vanishes. Did he come back? We will never know. A famous black and white movie on Matthew's Gospel shows him giving away his possessions with a smile, apparently doing what Jesus asked him. It is an interpretaion and it will appeal to some though not to others.

Jesus looked at him with love. At least this tells us that Jesus did not look down on him, did not react sternly when he claimed that he had kept all the commandments since his youth. Jesus accepted him as one honestly seeking a way of greater perfection. We see Jesus acting in a similar way in the first chapter of John's Gospel when two of the Baptist's disciples follow Jesus. True to the best sense of John's original language, we should translate Jesus' reaction as He turned and contemplated them. Jesus asked them 'What do you want?', not sternly or reproachfully but with accepting love. In spite of his seriousness, we must remember that Jesus looked at this man with love and his love must have been reassuring and welcoming.