Mark 10:29–30 with St. Teresa of Ávila
“Jesus said, ‘Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.’”
This saying of Jesus about forsaking the world for his sake and receiving great rewards in return appears in three of the gospels (see also Matt. 19:29 and Lk. 19:29-30). St. Teresa of Ávila focuses her attention on the claim worded most emphatically in Mark’s gospel that those rewards will not only be in eternal life but “now in this time.” Teresa clings to Jesus’ promise with confidence, urging us: “let us not cease to believe that even in this life God gives the hundredfold.”
But what does Teresa mean by this statement? Is she a sixteenth-century version of the prosperity gospel, telling us that God is going to give us every material comfort in this life? Certainly not! Her reflection on this gospel passage comes from her own experience of knowing the sweetness of God even in the midst of many hardships. She explains that what the Lord means by saying that we will obtain the hundredfold in this life is that those who detach themselves from the things of this world dispose themselves to receive God more and more fully. She uses the following analogy to describe how those who make progress in the spiritual life can receive the hundredfold even though the gift God gives of himself is always the same: “since what is given to those who are further advanced is totally the same as that given to them in the beginning, we can compare it to food that many persons eat. Those who eat just a little are left only with a good taste in their mouth for a short while; those who eat more, receive nourishment; those who eat a great deal receive life and strength.”
Teresa’s reflection on this gospel passage should help us share her confidence. When we sacrifice for the sake of the gospel and give up the things of this world to follow Christ more closely, then we work up an appetite for God’s love, to use her analogy. We move from having only a taste of God’s goodness, to a full course meal that can sustain us. According to Teresa, the hundredfold of which Jesus speaks is the Lord himself, given to us more and more as we make room to receive him.[1]
