July 27, 2014 – Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 Kgs 3: 5, 7-12 ; Ps 119: 57, 72, 76-77, 127-130; Rom 8: 28-30; Mt 13: 44-52
Today’s Gospel continues a series of parables which Jesus shared to teach us and His Apostles and disciples. One of the better known statements from one of the brief parables (The Parable of the Hidden Treasure) is: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field.” Then a Man seeking that treasure sells all He has and buys that field.
We may think that we are the “man” seeking the treasure, which is identified as the Kingdom of Heaven, but that might be incorrect. The field is more likely the world in which we live; the Man is not us, but Jesus; and the treasure is, quite simply, each of us.
Jesus gave everything for us; He gave everything to “purchase” the world; and we must understand that we are the treasure He sought. He has blessed us in incredible ways, but especially as our Savior and Redeemer. Part of being a faithful steward is recognizing those blessings, appreciating those gifts, and making an attempt to return those gifts to Him through our Church and through the way we live our lives. The noted author Dostoyevsky once wrote: “God has such gladness every time He sees from Heaven that a sinner is praying to Him with all his heart, as a mother has when she sees the first smile on her baby’s face.”
