Homily for Wednesday
17th Week of Ordinary Time
July 27, 2022
Matt 13: 44-46
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.
We continue hearing Jesus’ parables of the kingdom: What’s God’s kingdom like? What’s the realm in which God rules? How do I become and remain a citizen of the
kingdom?
Pope Francis proposes 2 takes on today’s twin parables. In the 1st, a man—perhaps a tenant farmer, perhaps a traveler—by chance finds treasure buried in a field. In the 2d, the merchant has been intentionally seeking a really valuable pearl. By accident or by deliberate search, each discovers God’s kingdom. They take immediate action to possess this wealth; they risk all they possess. Francis says, “They immediately perceive the incomparable value of what they’ve found, and they are prepared to lose everything in order to have it.”[1]
What precisely have the man in the field and the merchant found? According to the Holy Father, it’s simply
Jesus. To possess him, to know him
personally, is the greatest treasure in the world, worth any sacrifice to
attain and to keep.
Or one might reckon the treasure to be what Jesus preached: that God loves you, and his infinite, tender
mercy saves you. Which isn’t all that
different from what Francis says, to know and be in a relationship with
Jesus. Countless believers have staked
their lives on that: thousands of
missionaries, tens of thousands of martyrs, hundreds of thousands of priests
and religious, millions of everyday Christians.
Whether the love of God has found you without your intending it, or
you’ve sought it diligently, this treasure, this pearl, is all that matters.
[1] “Discovering the Kingdom of God,” in The
Infinite Tenderness of God: Meditations on the Gospels (Frederick, Md.: The
Word Among Us, 2016), p. 116.
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