"Come and follow me" (Mt 19, 21): This was how Jesus answered the question posed by the young rich man who was searching for perfection. The abandoning of all his earthly goods and of himself already implying an idea of fullness constitutes an indispensable condition, but only a condition, of the sequela Christi, in which the perfection of life consists. Renunciation is a liberation that allows the disciple, therefore the Christian, to commit himself completely to following the Maestro.

The encyclical Veritatis splendor points this out: "Following Christ is thus the essential and primordial foundation of Christian morality" (n. 19). The demand made by Jesus may seem to be exorbitant; it would be in fact if Jesus was a human teacher like all others. A teacher teaches and when the disciple has assimilated the doctrine, he retires, conscious that his task is accomplished; the disciple spiritually becomes an adult, he no longer needs a teacher. The guru represents another kind of teacher. He intends to lead the disciple to a spiritual experience: this is well beyond simple teaching; it is a question of imitating behaviour and practising a discipline and a lifestyle. Of course in the end the disciple must be capable of leaving the teacher; the dangers of a certain fusional mimetism are great and the teacher may be tempted to exercise spiritual power.

The demand itself made by Jesus already reveals who He is; it is as if the veil were removed showing His divinity. The encyclical observes that: "This is not a matter only of disposing oneself to hear a teaching and obediently accepting a commandment. More radically, it involves holding fast to the very person of Jesus, partaking of his life and his destiny, sharing in his free and loving obedience to the will of the Father. By responding in faith and following the one who is Incarnate Wisdom, the disciple of Jesus truly becomes a disciple of God (cf. Jn 6:45)." (no. 19). The commitment is really total, requiring the gift of the whole person: "Jesus asks us to follow him and to imitate him along the path of love, a love which gives itself completely to the brethren out of love for God" (n. 20).

Hence we say that: "Following Christ" simply expresses the Christian vocation itself in its radicalism and in its essential contents. Paragraph number 21 of the Veritatis splendor provides with a very intense summary: "Following Christ is not an outward imitation, since it touches man at the very depths of his being. Being a follower of Christ means becoming conformed to him who became a servant even to giving himself on the Cross (cf. Phil 2:5-8). Christ dwells by faith in the heart of the believer (cf. Eph 3:17), and thus the disciple is conformed to the Lord. This is the effect of grace, of the active presence of the Holy Spirit in us".

We have here a number of important clarifications: interiority, configuration, assimilation and all this as the fruit of the grace and work of the Holy Spirit. It is this last element that must be emphasised first: The sanctifying grace that assimilates us to Christ and that is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit transforms us and configures us to Christ. This must be understood in the ontological sense, because it is the Christian being that finds himself, through grace, configured to Christ and carries within himself His image. A quotation from Saint Augustine expresses this admirably: "Let us rejoice and give thanks for we have become not only Christians, but Christ (...). Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ!" (no. 21). The text continues stating: "Having died to sin, those who are baptized receive new life (cf. Rom 6:3-11): alive for God in Christ Jesus, they are called to walk by the Spirit and to manifest the Spirit's fruits in their lives (cf. Gal 5:16-25)". The "sequela Christi" is the rule for Christian life. The practise of moral virtues and the imitation of the examples that Jesus has given us and that are related in the Gospel, envisage that the motions and the illumination of the Holy Spirit will open the heart to their understanding. Before this however the work of the Holy Spirit is exercised at a more radical level. The configuration and the assimilation that characterise the imitation of Christ proceed from theological life to sacramental life. It is experienced in the mystery of the faith and is the fruit of sacramental life.

In fact the encyclical affirms: "By the work of the Spirit, Baptism radically configures the faithful to Christ in the Paschal Mystery of death and resurrection; it "clothes him" in Christ (cf. Gal 3:27)". (ibid). Baptism is therefore the root of the sequela Christi. It is fulfilled in the Eucharist: "Sharing in the Eucharist, the sacrament of the New Covenant (cf. 1 Cor 11:23-29), is the culmination of our assimilation to Christ, the source of "eternal life" (cf. Jn 6:51-58), the source and power of that complete gift of self, which Jesus — according to the testimony handed on by Paul — commands us to commemorate in liturgy and in life: "As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor 11:26)." (no. 21). Christian life, in its entireness, is a sequela Christi, that configures and assimilates to the divine life that Christ communicates to us through the Holy Spirit.