22nd Sunday Year C 2022

 

22^nd. Sunday, Year (C)

(Sirach 3:17s., 20, 28s.; Hebrews 12: 18s., 22-24a; Luke 14:1, 7-11)

 

The story about the place of honour at the wedding feast seems, of itself, to be merely worldly advice; indeed, it seems to lead to a rather hypocritical semblance of humility, with the subject publicly choosing the lowest place whilst not only thinking himself worthy of a higher place, but indeed planning to receive honour in the sight of the other guests on being called higher by the host.  And yet, Our Blessed Lord uses such worldly scheming as a parable for heavenly truth and experience.

This, first of all, teaches us that our basic human attitudes and feelings are orientated towards the good ... that our human nature is not fundamentally vitiated.   Though we are indeed weak, ignorant, and sinful, our human nature is by no means totally corrupted, nor is our natural sensitivity without a measure of spiritual  awareness.  We have been and are made in the image of God, and this nature of ours is disturbed in the depths of its being by sin which, fundamentally, does not suit us.

The story told by Jesus about the natural embarrassment one would feel on being dismissed from the highest seat and sent to the lowest, is concerned not only with the resulting public humiliation, but also with the morally good response of deep personal embarrassment on being thus publicly obliged to admit one’s overweening pride and self-esteem on having originally arrogated the place of honour at the banquet table.

Human nature is made for God and can at times warn us of the presence of sin – something opposed and foreign to our true good -- when our explicit thinking is unable or unwilling to detect or recognize such a presence.   For example, most young people will instinctively feel embarrassment or even a certain fear at the first wrongful sex activity, whereby their basically good human nature warns them even when their minds and consciences are not sufficiently aware or enlightened; and how, indeed, can they subject themselves to their very first experience of dangerous drugs leading to  experiences with unknowable personal consequences without instinctive trepidation?  Adults also may make ‘faux-pas’ or gaffs in public and feel intense embarrassment as a result; and often enough, such feelings are not merely due to an anticipated loss of face, but also to the awareness of having originally spoken foolishly out of personal vanity, or fulsomely in a quest for human acceptance and praise.

Human nature is, I repeat, still good and sensitive enough to give authentic warning signals -- truly, intimations of immortality -- to our minds and explicit thinking.  Unfortunately, however, we can so quickly learn to resist and confuse our residual integrity, fighting against or even rejecting our instinctive modesty and honesty, with the result that even prostitutes and murderers, thieves, traducers, and traitors, become hard-faced as the Scriptures and daily-life experience in the world today tell us, and such people will say, ‘Where is our sin; what harm are we doing, we’re not hurting anyone who doesn’t deserve it are we? 

But why, after wrongly choosing the highest place at the feast, in our Gospel story, would the person concerned have to betake himself to the lowest seat of all?  Here  Our Blessed Lord has adapted the real-life situation somewhat in order to fit it for its present function as a parable of heavenly truth.  For, before God, none of us can, in truth, say that we are more worthy than anyone else: first of all, because we rarely – indeed, at times, will not – recognize the sin in our own lives, and secondly because we can never penetrate the hearts of others.  Therefore, the only attitude for a conscientious Christian is to take the lowest seat of all.  For greatness in the Kingdom of God is determined not by our opinion of our own worth or that of anyone else, but by God’s judgment, as St. Paul says (1 Corinthians 4:1-5):

With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court.  I do not even judge myself.  I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.  It is the Lord Who judges me.  Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, Who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.  Then every man will receive his commendation from God. 

This part of our Gospel passage for today is rounded off by a general statement which seems to have been a favourite saying of Our Lord:

Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the man who humbles himself will be exalted.

Pride, self-assertion in ordinary human society is both bad manners and bad policy, but in the Kingdom of God it is totally inadmissible.  There, ‘pride goes before a fall’, and there is only kind of privilege and dignity: the kind that comes to those who do not seek it, but rather seek to love and serve God and are content to walk humbly and at peace with their neighbour.  The advice given in our Gospel reading about who to invite to your parties, is not meant to be exclusive of anyone, rich or poor, close friends or chance passers-by; the hospitality advised by Jesus is one which seeks to give generously, not to get, surreptitiously.  To all who are in need -- and the rich can be in need also – we should give, if our conscience calls and as our conscience guides; give, that is, in generous simplicity not with calculating discernment.

To close, let me offer you a story, from the early Desert Fathers, of one who knew how to give, when faced with need, and what is much more, he learned how to humble himself in his giving:

Before Abba Poemen’s group came to Scetis, there was an old man in Egypt who enjoyed considerable fame and repute.  But when Abba Poemen’s group went up to Scetis, men left the old man to go to see Abba Poemen. Abba Poemen was grieved at this and said to his disciples, ‘What is to be done about this great old man, for men grieve him by leaving him and coming to us who are nothing?  What shall we do, then, to comfort this old man?’  He said to them, ‘Make ready a little food, and take a skin of wine and let us go to see him and eat with him.  And so we shall be able to comfort him.’  So they put together some food, and went.

 When they knocked at the door, the old man’s one remaining disciple answered, saying, ‘Who are you?’  They responded, ‘Tell the abba, it is Poemen who desires to be blessed by him.’  The disciple reported this to the old man who sent him back telling him to say to Poemen, ‘Go away, I have no time.’  Nevertheless, in spite of the heat, they persevered, saying: ‘We shall not go away till we have been allowed to meet the old man.’  Seeing their humility and patience, the old man was filled with compunction and opened the door to them himself.  Then they went in and ate with him.  During the meal he said, ‘Truly, not only what I have heard about you is true, but I see that your works are a hundred-fold greater than those reports’, and from that day he became their friend, and the beauty of mutual appreciation and respect was restored among the brethren.     (2022)

21st Sunday Year C 2022

 

               21^st. Sunday of Year (C)                                      (Isaiah 66:18-21; Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13; Luke 13:22-30)  

 

 

Jesus was asked, as you have just heard:

“Lord, will only a few people be saved?" He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter and will not be able.”

Notice the question: ‘Lord, will only a few people be saved?’

That, in St. Luke’s Gospel, is a question asked by ’someone’; as Jesus was ‘somewhere’; literally ‘ passing through from one city and village to another’ on His way to Jerusalem.

Both Saints Mark and Matthew, however, give us the same teaching and tell us that the occasion when it was originally given by Jesus was in response to a rich young Jew who wanted to make sure of his way to heaven, but could not quite prevail over himself so much as to relinquish his great riches.

It seems, therefore, that Luke knew that he had a piece of very important teaching of Jesus to pass on to the Church but did not know just where to put it in his Gospel account; and so he puts it somewhere serious, that is  – Jesus on His way to Jerusalem -- but also ‘nowhere’, ‘passing through from one city and village to another’.  St. Luke, however, was guided by the Holy Spirit even though he did not know all the facts in this case, and the ‘context’ he chose, of Jesus being nowhere in particular and of nobody in particular questioning Him,  “Lord, will only a few people be saved?" such a context does open up our Gospel reading to today, when the phrasing of that question ‘does God save only a few?’ really means something to us, for it is, I say, truly modern in that it implies that any blame for human failure to find salvation is to be laid at God’s door, so to speak.

Now, Jesus often refused to answer such questions because they were not put to simply learn the truth, but rather to help in the justification of the questioner: simplicity and love of truth have never been common human virtues.   And so, here, Jesus responds not to the carefully chosen words but to the real situation and needs of the questioner (of whom Ss. Matthew and Mark tell us) and He responds as the Son of God, Who Himself, as man, most truly loves God and whole-heartedly seeks to do His will:

Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will attempt to enter and will not be able.

For Jesus, the question is not whether God saves only a few, but whether only a few men and women will make the required effort to enable themselves to receive what God wills to offer them.  Many will, indeed, want to enter the kingdom of God, but they will not want to strive to enter through a narrow gate; rather, they will think of presenting themselves later in the day, when, at some other point of entry, they imagine it might be easier to find access.

Our first reading told us of God choosing people from nations of every language, while the second described what would be involved for those thus specially chosen, emphasizing above all their need of serious and even painful training:

My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by Him; for whom the Lord loves, He disciplines; He scourges every son He acknowledges.”    Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?  At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.

However, such is the modern, largely self-indulgent, Western society to which we belong that I can already imagine someone saying: ‘Why should we have to suffer like that, why should religion entail suffering?   The answer is given us by Jesus Himself elsewhere in the Gospel as St. Matthew tells us:

His disciples were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?"   Jesus looked at them and said: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:25-26)

The reason why no man can save himself is simple enough: salvation is beyond all human powers, it is something that God alone can bring about, because it gives human beings a share in divine life, in the eternal blessedness and glory of God Himself, by making them partakers of His holiness.  This we have learned from our Christian faith and formation, which teaches us what the original disciples, with their Jewish background, could not begin to understand until they had seen Jesus rise from the dead and ascend in bodily glory to heaven.  A faith that promises such heavenly glory to weak and indeed sinful human beings obviously entails training; and that training will, obviously, inevitably, involve testing and trials, because it is a training intended to change us, to raise us up above our earthly limitations, to purge and purify us of our inherent selfishness and sinfulness.

We can recognize all this in the response given by the Master in our Gospel reading to those arriving outside the house after the doors have been closed:

After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’

Only those are recognized for salvation whose origin is known, and we are personally known in that way to the Father only if He can see Jesus, His beloved Son, in us: that is, if we, as living members of the Body of Christ, are being formed into the likeness of our Head; if we, as dutiful children of Mother Church, are being guided -- by the Spirit with which she has been endowed -- to follow her teaching and so to  live and walk as true disciples along the way of Jesus Christ, the one and only Lord of Salvation.   Only those thus showing themselves to be sincere disciples of the goodness and truth in Jesus are beloved of the Father.

Of course, all who are left outside, having no appreciation of the holiness and majesty of God, cry out in self-justification:

We ate and drank in Your company, and You taught in our streets.

Dear People of God, those words should give us cause for serious thought, because they are most appropriate for people like ourselves, who, every Sunday, hear the teaching of Jesus in the readings and the homily at Holy Mass before going on to eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion.  Let us pray that our situation be nothing like that of the outsiders of the Gospel parable in whom the old adage, ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ was fully exemplified. 

They confidently proclaimed their familiarity with the Master:

            We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.

But such protestations merely brought into prominence their hidden disdain for Him, for they had never really given attention to His words they heard in their streets, they had never seriously tried to appreciate His teaching in their hearts, nor had their eating and drinking in His presence ever been honest and sincere expressions of their love and longing for personal communion with Him.

Jesus’ answer is given in words of clear and deserved condemnation:

I do not know where you are from.  Depart from Me, all you evil doers.

Many today have little respect for religion and so have almost no appreciation of heavenly matters: instead of the transcendent God they can imagine nothing more than a mythical, white-haired, old man sitting on a gilded throne high above; while natural charm of manner, emotional exhibitionism, and the dynamics of spiritual careerism, are the only signs they consider to be indicative of the holiness engendered by the presence of God’s Spirit of truth and life.  Consequently, it is not surprising that this parable of Jesus and the attitude of the Master of the house can cause vehement complaints of self-righteous indignation from many: ‘Why should religion, discipleship, entail suffering?’

Because self-indulgence and self-satisfaction is prevalent among men and women of all ages the same teaching was given by Jesus on many other occasions and in many other ways throughout His ministry so that there could be no possibility of it being overlooked or ignored by anyone in the slightest degree serious about serving God:

 

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Mt 7:13-14)

         Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross,             and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses          his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. (Mark 8:34-36)

 

So I say to you, ask, (You must ask) and it will be given to you; seek, (you must actually seek) and you will find; knock, (you must be prepared to stand, wait, and knock) and it will be opened to you. (Luke 11:9)

Assuredly, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3)

People of God, in modern society as we know it, positive words and actions frighten people: leaders of all sorts prefer to be able to avoid responsibility for difficult decisions by saying that events left them with no other option, or that they did all that was humanly possible in straightened circumstances.  This they do, not because they love peace or have a high concern for others, but simply because they want to protect their own back from any possible attack, their own person from any cloud of suspicion or threat of criticism.  Even in religious matters, leaders can feel so vulnerable, so open to bitter criticism, that it is rare today for anything positive to be said if, so to speak, the direction of the wind and the temperature of the water have not been thoroughly tested and suitably allowed for beforehand.

Now Jesus had no such taste for self-preservation, no such fear of what human beings might think, say, or do, in His regard: He served only His Father’s glory and our salvation.  Therefore, we should take Him most seriously when He warns us, who, in this world, are privileged Catholics:

There will be wailing and grinding of teeth, when you see yourselves cast out of the Kingdom of God, and (others) come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.

However, although we seriously, indeed anxiously, allow Our Lord’s words to admonish us, we must never forget our primary duty and privilege of filial confidence together with gratitude: we must always take to heart from, and place our trust in, words of comfort such as the following heard in our second reading and echoed throughout the whole of Our Blessed Lord’s life and teaching:

The Lord loves those whom He disciplines; He acknowledges every son He scourges.

To be loved by the Lord, to be accepted as His children, what a privilege!!  Surely,  any passing, earthly, trials and suffering imposed by the Lord Who thus loves us in His beloved Only-Begotten Son, are to be embraced with humble confidence and firm trust, by all who would be true disciples of Him Who embraced the Passion and Cross on Calvary with such enduring patience and consuming love for us. 

Son though He was, He (for us) learned obedience from what He suffered; and when He was made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.  (Hebrews 5:8-9)

Having thus been made perfect in His own manhood when He rose in glory to join His Father in Heaven, He now awaits our purification and glorification as members of His Body; a perfection to be brought to fulfilment in us by the Holy Spirit He has given us and the teaching He has left us in Mother Church.                  (Modified 2022)                                                               

The Assumption of Our Lady Year C 2022

 

The Assumption of Our Lady (2022)

(Revelation 11:19; 12:1-6, 10; 1 Corinthians 15:20-27; Luke 1: 39-56)

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The official, dogmatic, teaching of Mother Church about Our Lady’s Assumption, which we joyfully celebrate today, was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII in 1950 and is quoted in our modern Catholic Catechism as follows:

The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death,

That text combines both the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady and her Coronation as Queen of Heaven together in one long sentence, which the Catechism then goes on to distinguish and explain:

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians.

 Which all means that Mary’s Assumption was not achieved of her own power nor was it due to her own merits: it was a gift, a unique share in the glorious power of Jesus’ Resurrection, given her because, by her very own ‘Fiat’, she had willed and enabled -- by virtue of the overpowering Spirit of God -- the Son of God Himself to take on human flesh as Jesus of Nazareth, and become her very own son and Saviour.  Having thus become human in body and soul as Jesus, while remaining divine in His Person as Son and Word of God, the Messiah sent among men by God the Father could and would win victory over sin and death for the whole of mankind.

Having duly and dutifully won that victory over sin and death in the flesh and blood He received from Immaculate Mary, the Assumption became the most fitting expression of Mary’s unique participation and sharing in her Son’s triumph won for all mankind. And today I want to propose to you that, while Mary’s Assumption is indeed a unique participation in her Son’s triumph, it is not intentionally exclusive; on the contrary, it is of sublime significance for all women.

Mary’s exaltation and coronation as Queen of Heaven is based on her totally unique motherhood of, love for, and co-operation with, her Son in His sacrificial life and death on earth; she alone was, is, and ever remains, exclusively, Queen and Mother.  But her Assumption, I believe, is not totally based on her uniquely-gifted personal sinlessness, but also on her femininity, in the sense that it contains a message and offers a transcendent inspiration and aspiration for the whole of Christian womanhood.

Once Jesus, God made man, had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven for our salvation, there could be no rational doubt for believers that the whole of mankind … men and women, both formed in the image and likeness of God as human beings… would, granted God’s goodness and mercy, be both allowed to participate in that glory.  However, given humanity’s enduring frailty and occasional sinfulness and indeed perverseness, there can be little doubt that it could soon have been irrationally bandied about and secretly whispered that Jesus had gone to heaven because He was God; and that men also might indeed possibly go there too, having ‘already gone there’, so to speak, in and with Jesus as man.   But what about women, not having that direct sexual relationship?

I like, therefore, to think that today’s great feast has also the purpose and function of recalling and heralding the native dignity and glory of God’s original plan for humanity as a whole, and that the Assumption proclaims Mary’s peerless expression of the wondrous beauty of feminine humanity as intended in God’s original creation, now redeemed by Christ, and ultimately glorified by the most Holy Spirit.

Think of Mary hearing the angel Gabriel’s greeting, so religiously and calmly satisfying herself about his personal integrity and authority, then going on to question him humbly yet pertinently about the meaning of his message for herself; before most courageously committing herself --  unconditionally and unhesitatingly -- to God’s purpose, for His glory alone.  And this she did despite being aware the possibility (remote but real) of her being put to death by the religious authorities of her time, and knowing most certainly that she would have to endure the public contempt of all who did not know her intimately, most especially those women who knew her only well enough to be able to gossip  about her  at the well and the ‘shops’ in Nazareth!

Peerlessly full, brave, and spiritually beautiful, womanhood; framed and presented in a physical presence of appropriate perfection, that is what Mary’s Assumption manifests.

There are many today, however, who think that Mary’s expression of womanhood treasured for so long by the Church is not enough; modern women want power more than spiritual beauty and courage:  total power over their eggs (!) and total freedom in the exercise of their physical and sexual being; in the Church they  want the diaconate now, and who knows, perhaps the priesthood next.  And later, who hasn’t heard of the ludicrous Pope Joan?  Foolish?  Yes, indeed, for now; but who could possibly have imagined today’s horrors afflicting Mother Church throughout the West, abortion, abuse, sexual disorientation and pride, some 40 or 50 years ago?

This mentality -- ruled by secular logic, not inspired by Catholic faith -- has no appreciation whatsoever of the beauty and power of complementarity.  For them, if one person or group has something another does not have, that is prejudice, and, as such, it is ethically wrong according to the standards of those who worship words discoursing about equality, freedom, and fairness, but will not subject themselves to serve God’s revealed will concerning what is right and wrong, good and bad, for the humanity He made.

And yet, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our faith in God -- His very own Personal Being, and His creation in all its wonderful diversity -- proclaims the sublime and indeed ultimate beauty and power of complementarity, which not only requires and demands, but actually, and quite uniquely, evokes those two most sublime virtues of Love and Humility which are the hallmarks of all Catholic faith and life.

Those who look at Mary’s most easily recognizable beauty and glory, but find that insufficient -- for their taste -- without the addition of power and authority, will inevitably come to look upon Christ Himself and see less and less recognizable beauty there, only questionable Power ever more!  For the present, they simply skip over His more forceful word, such as 'Let the dead bury their dead, but you, follow Me' and concentrate, often over-emotionally, on His teaching on mutual love and forgiveness.  Mary’s whole being has always and in every way, physically, spiritually, and theologically, served to protect the fullness of the glory of her Son and Lord, and to help our right appreciation of it and our true love for His Person.

Mary as shown forth in her Assumption is and always has been the ideal of Christian womanhood: beautiful and glorious, humble, and heaven bound with and for her Son and as our Mother:  a beauty not excogitated and worked out by human pride, but one created by God for His own glory and our great blessing; a beauty most perfectly redeemed by Christ and then totally polished like an incomparable gem by the Most Holy Spirit of both Father and  Son in the complementarity of Their eternal Unity of Being.  

 

 

 

19th Sunday Year C 2022

 

19th. Sunday of the Year (C)        

 (Wisdom 18:6-9; Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-12; Luke 12:32-48)

 

The deliverance of the righteous and the destruction of their enemies were expected by Your people.  For by the same means with which You punished our enemies You called us to Yourself and glorified us.  (Wisdom 18:7-9)

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, those words, from the OT book of Wisdom, which refer originally to God’s destruction of the pursuing Egyptian army in the Red Sea in order to bring His People out of slavery, find a two-fold relevance and fulfilment in the New Testament: first of all, when Jesus broke Satan’s enslaving power over us through the allurement of sin and the threat of death, by His suffering, death, and resurrection:

            You punished our enemies

and then by His ascension, went -- in the glory of the Spirit -- to His Father in heaven, where He now sits as Man in human flesh at the right hand of the Father:

            and (thereby) glorified us.

Those two distinct events of Jesus’ life, His suffering for us beginning with His agony in the  garden, and  His ascension into heaven in His glorified humanity -- are made active and effective in our lives -- become SALVATION for us -- through faith in Jesus.

This gift of new life with its promise of eternal glory is, so to speak, the overarching cover, the shielding and sheltering protection, of our lives as children of  God, enabling each of us to grow to individual, personal, maturity in Jesus by the Gift of Jesus’ Holy Spirit, our Helper in and throughout our lives.

A few words from the second reading explain why faith is so supremely important for our life in Christ:

      Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

Our Christian hope is for those heavenly realities and that heavenly fulfilment put before us by Jesus, in promises that resonate to the furthest depths of our being as  humans uniquely made in the image and likeness of God.  They cannot be apprehended by us here and now because they transcend us; but, in the ultimate realization of God’s providential plan, they will be our sublime fulfilment in the glory of Jesus.   Such blessings hoped for from God, according to the promise of the Scriptures, can, however, begin to be appropriated by us, here and now, through faith in Jesus, by the working of His most Holy Spirit in us, through the ministry of Mother Church.  We can, indeed, begin here and now, to truly appropriate and gradually appreciate such heavenly realities as we begin to really apprehend something of the fulfilment they offer through faith, which, as St.  Paul says:  is the substance of things hoped for.

We must turn to the Gospel, however, to learn an aspect of supreme importance within this broad outline of our salvation.  Jesus there tells His disciples:

Provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys.

Now the reason why He tells them to provide a treasure for themselves in heaven is because, as He went on to explain:

      Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Because He is seeking to draw us, in Himself, to heaven where there is no gold or silver, no tight purses or secure safes, He draws attention to our heart -- the seat of human affection and attachment – for which personal love alone is the supreme and exclusive treasure. 

Likewise, when He advises His disciples to:

            Sell what you have and give alms,

He is not really interested in seeing us reduced to poverty: but He does want us to open our hearts, unreservedly and fully, to receive His Father’s gift of the Kingdom:

            It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom;

He wants us to unreservedly love the promise and the prospect of heaven where, He assures us, our dearest and most precious treasure -- our heart’s treasure -- awaits us.

And so we have this outline of our salvation:

The deliverance of the righteous and the destruction of their enemies were expected by Your people.  For by the same means with which You punished our enemies You called us to Yourself and glorified us. 

By the glorious Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, and through our faith in Him, God has called us to Himself.  And we have learnt, broadly speaking, how that glorious calling is to be realised: through the prospect and promises of hope, faith leads us to open our minds, hearts, and lives to the ultimate inspiration of divine charity.  That is the way we are to finally attain ‘our treasure’, our hope, or, as Jesus put it earlier, ‘the Kingdom of God’:

Seek the kingdom of God, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Jesus spoke repeatedly of the Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of heaven; St. Paul, however, tells us that the Kingdom of God is also the Kingdom of the Son:

He (the Father) has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. (Colossians 1:13-14)

Why does Paul speak of the Kingdom of the Son whereas Jesus always spoke of the Kingdom of God?

First of all Paul speaks in this way because, ultimately, Jesus Himself is the Kingdom of God present in our world and in our lives.

And secondly, because the Kingdom of the Son, of which St. Paul speaks, will ultimately to be handed over to the Father, and in that way become the Kingdom of God, the Father.  Listen to Paul’s explanation:

In Christ all shall be made alive, but each one in his own order: Christ the first fruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming.  Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.  For He (Christ) must reign till He (God the Father) has put all enemies under His feet.  The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. … Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him (God the Father) who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:22-28)

Jesus is the load-stone drawing the affection of our hearts to God by the fact that He is God-in-our human-flesh.  Like loves like: and companionship in human flesh – gifted by Mary our Mother -- enables us to respond most deeply to Him Who is God, yet become One-like-us.  Our response to His promises, His example, and His call; our faith in Him and our human love for Him; will gently open our hearts to the working of His Spirit Who will then form us gradually in His divine likeness until we come to love God for His divine beauty and goodness.

From this we can see that our personal treasure will ultimately be the glorious Jesus when He returns to make the final proclamation and manifestation of His eternal glory, and to hand all that is His over to the Father, so that He, the Father, might be ‘All in all’.

Now we can, as it were, ‘pull all the strings together’ in order to get a complete picture, a full understanding.

‘Treasure in heaven’ is essential, as Jesus Himself said, if our hearts are to be fully, totally attached to heaven.  Faith guides us towards the attainment of our heavenly hope, but faith is commitment to the teaching of Jesus directly, and only mediately commitment to the Person of Jesus.  Love, on the other hand, being, most accurately, the gift of divine charity, commits our whole being immediately, directly, to the very Person of Jesus.  This personal commitment to Jesus – mediated, I say, by faith in His teaching, is directly attained through our sharing in the gift of divine charity, for Jesus is Himself the Kingdom for us.  And this love -- being, as I said, a heavenly gift, indeed the Gift of the Spirit -- transcends our present time and this visible world, and takes us into the eternity of God Himself where Jesus will ultimately, as we have heard, hand over His  Kingdom to the Father and lead us -- as members of His Body in and with Him -- to love, yes, to love divinely, the Father Himself, as Jesus would have us love Him; for the Father must become, as you heard, ‘All in all’.  

Faith is the ‘substance of things hoped for’; by our faith, we can, by a life of discipleship on earth, already gain some experience of what will be our heavenly fellowship with Jesus, before the Father, in the Spirit.  That experience, that fellowship, that love of charity, can and should deepen within us throughout our life on earth, but that can only come about in Mother Church, through our faith in her proclamation of the Gospel, and by the grace of her sacraments, which bestow on us the Spirit of Love and Truth Who unites and binds together Father and Son. 

And then, for all those faithful sons and daughters of Mother Church who thus grow in the knowledge and love of Jesus our Saviour, the words of the Psalmist are most beautifully appropriate and consoling:

Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.  I will deliver him and honour him and show him My salvation. (Psalm 91:14-16)

                                                                 (2022)