July 30, 2017 — Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 KGS 3: 5, 7-12; PS 86: 5-6, 9-10, 15-16; ROM 8: 26-27; MT 13: 24-43
Jesus presents us with more parables in today’s Gospel from St. Matthew. He opens the first one with “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
According to most biblical scholars and theologians who study and draw conclusions on Jesus’ teachings, in this particular parable, and those which follow, the field is the world. The man who values the treasure is not any of us because we do not have anything with which to purchase this treasure. The Man Who gave all to buy this field was Jesus Himself.
And it is with joy that He gives all to buy the field, to save the world and each of us. What makes the treasure so wonderful that the Lord would give all, His very life? Each of us. In other words, each of you! Jesus gave everything to redeem the whole world to preserve a treasure it contains. He gave all because we His people are the treasure.
Do we understand that? Do we consider that every time we approach the gift of the Eucharist? We should. St. Paul may have put it best in his letter to the Romans: “You are loved more than you will ever know, by someone who died to know you.” (Romans 5:8)
