What is worth it all?

I wonder what it is that excites us, that gets us going, that makes us say I would do anything for…..
We all like different sorts of things, have different passions, get butterflies in our stomach at the thought of, well what? What is it that you would pay anything for, is there anything that excites you that much.
Today we think about Ignatius of Loyola. He was a soldier, well to do in a respectable (if somewhat dangerous) position for his day. He was not particularly interested in matters of faith until, that is, he got wounded in battle and had a long recouperation. He read about the life of Jesus and the life of the Saints and underwent a religious conversion complete with a vision of the Virgin Mary.
His life turned completely and he decided to use his military background to build a religious order who would be the soldiers of Christ, not like the crusaders armed with swords and armour, but those who truly put on the whole armour of Christ through rigorous spiritual discipline and high academic study – thus the Jesuits were born. Jesuits were radical because they were obedient directly to the Pope and the mission of the whole Church and therefore tended to clash with local ecclessial agendas.
There  is a basic human longing for God. Even when people refuse the name of God a vast percentage of people look, at some point in their lives, for something outside themselves, something bigger, something which is worth more than the transitory things with which we surround ourselves.
There is a sweetness is God’s presence which is only found there, which draws us back again and again. We might not find ourselves challenged to sell everything that we have but even if that is not the case, today’s Gospel reminds us to consider where our values lie, what is worth hanging on to and what we are willing to let go of to do that.