The talk deals with the story of the rich young man who asked Christ about goodness, and Christ answered him saying: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one, that is God.” The Pope explains that this phrase appears in the Gospels (Matthew and Mark) in the context of a question about eternal life and keeping the commandments.

Spiritual explanation:
He clarifies that Christ did not deny His goodness, but indicated that absolute goodness belongs to God in its broader sense. The word is directed at the pride of the young man who thought he was complete by keeping the commandments, yet it reveals a wound of love of money and inability to give up wealth as a condition to enter into the depth of Christian love.

Theological explanation:
The speaker shows that the word “God” in Scripture sometimes indicates the Father and sometimes the whole divinity, and that the general divine attributes include all the persons (hypostases) except for the specific hypostatic attributes that distinguish each person. He warns against taking the exceptional particle “except” literally in a way that would exclude the other person, affirming the unity of divine attributes between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Practical application and message:
The practical aim of the talk is an invitation to humility of heart, service, love and sacrifice (selling possessions and giving to the poor and following Christ) as the way to spiritual perfection, not merely preserving the commandments as an external form. He also emphasizes the necessity of understanding biblical texts in their theological and spiritual context so they are not interpreted in a way that distances from the doctrine of the Trinity and divine unity.

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