Word to the Wise
Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - Wednesday in the 17th Week in Ordinary Time
[Jer 15:10, 16-21 and Matt 13:44-46]"The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it." [Matthew]
We have an expression we use, "What's it worth to you?" when someone wants something that we have and we want to get something in return from them. This expression takes on a different flavor in the parables from the Gospel of Matthew that form today's gospel scripture. The "flavor" comes from a discovery, either by surprise when a buried treasure is found in a field, or when our search among many similar things suddenly yields something beyond what we were expecting. Jesus speaks of a "joy" in the discovery. This joy motivates the finder to sell everything to have the discovered item.
Shortly after his election, Pope Francis issued the document, THE JOY OF THE GOSPEL. In it he urges all of us to discover the joy of spreading the good news of the Kingdom. Pope Paul VI did the same in his encyclical, THE GOOD NEWS TO BE PREACHED. I see this joy occasionally in those who go through the RCIA program to become members of the Catholic Church. This is a kind of "ultimate" discovery of something that gives meaning to everything else. Pope Benedict XVI, in the document he co-wrote with Pope Francis, THE LIGHT OF FAITH, speaks of faith as an encounter with a love greater than any we have ever experienced before.
I see all of this as a challenge to re-discover the joy of the gospel. Those of us who are "cradle Catholics" grow up with the faith as something assumed rather than discovered. Would we be willing to do what the person who found the buried treasure or the pearl of great price did? Does our faith bring any joy to our lives? Pope Francis rejects an approach to our faith that produces "sourpusses!" Can we find joy in being a baptized Christian? AMEN