(1 Kings 3:5, 7-12; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52)
Our readings this week, my dear People of God, give us great cause for gratitude and hope. Just think of those words of St. Paul that you heard in the second reading:
Those God foreknew He also
predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the
firstborn among many brothers; and those He predestined He also called; and
those He called He also justified; and those He justified He also glorified.
That means that God foreknew each one of you baptized
Catholics here present, and He predestined you to be conformed to the likeness
of His Son. How do we know that? Because God the Father called you to faith in
Jesus and, through the waters of baptism, washed you clean of all sin, to
become a member of Jesus’ Body, the Church, where you are endowed with the Gift
of God’s Holy Spirit. Thus justified,
you are also being glorified, for that outpouring of the Spirit of Christ into
your soul is the beginning of a life-long process of glorification and sanctification
whereby the Spirit of Jesus will lead you ever further along the way of Jesus to
the Father. Every time you receive Jesus
in Holy Communion and open yourself up to Him in loving gratitude and prayer,
that glory -- which is the presence of His Spirit in you -- will shine ever
more brightly for love of the Father.
You and I, each and every one of us, known and loved by God the Father
before time in His Son, are thus destined for eternal glory, IF -- by the
Spirit of sanctification -- we persevere faithfully in Jesus and His Church!
What degree of glory will be ours? That we do not know; but we do know that
Mary, a girl from Nazareth, is now Queen of Heaven above all the Angels, Principalities,
and Powers because she became the most loving and beautiful mother of God’s own
Son-in- human-flesh. Our own degree of
eternal glory will likewise depend on our relationship with Him and His
Father’s plan for us; notice that, dear People of God, egalitarianism is not
on God’s agenda!
His universal goodness, however, is absolutely essential to
that agenda for He loves each and every one of us, in our individuality; and
that means that though there are and will be distinctions or differences, there
will be no discrimination whatsoever,
because our own degree of eternal glory will also depend, of course, on our personal
commitment to His Person (love) and His will (obedience) during
our time on earth.
Our glorification has already begun; that we know because
we love Jesus Who is in heaven and we hope for, look forward to, His heavenly
promises; with the result that, although we are still subject to temptation
here on earth, we are not ruled by the earthly lusts of our flesh, nor
do we allow ourselves to be dominated by that earthly pride which
would drive us to seek earthly success, power, and prestige above all else.
As yet, however, we cannot see the final result of our
struggles, or the fullness of our on-going glorification, but St. John (1 John
3:2) does assure us that:
Beloved, now we are children of
God; it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is
revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
What we have to do, therefore, throughout our life on
earth, is to remain faithful to Jesus.
That will most certainly demand effort at times, because we
have to be tested, formed, and found worthy of God’s gifts and promises, as you
heard earlier:
We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who
are called according to His purpose.
Surely, dear friends in Christ, we should regard ourselves
as having found a treasure, a pearl of great price, indeed, the delight of
our life, and we should carefully listen to and try to gratefully
appreciate, Jesus’ parables in today’s Gospel reading:
The kingdom of heaven is like a
merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great
price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
Now, all of us here are in a similar position, for Jesus is
the Father’s sublime treasure, His pearl
beyond compare, and He has been revealed to us by the Father:
No one can come to Me unless the
Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44)
Why has the Father drawn us to Jesus?
God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
(John 3:16)
Yes, Jesus is indeed the treasure, the pearl of great
price, and each of us knows where He is to be found for our ever-greater
delight and growth: in the life and sacraments of Mother Church; above all, in
the Eucharist and the Scriptures. Only
the Spirit of Jesus, given in fullness to Mother Church, can reveal to us
-- in and through her worship and teaching -- the wonder of Jesus' saving life and love; only the Spirit of Jesus
can enable us to share in the life of Jesus through her Holy Scriptures
and the sacraments given to Mother
Church as sources of divine life and conduits of saving grace for us, her
children; only the Spirit can gradually fill and transfigure the
thoughts of our mind and the aspirations of our heart through our communion
with Him: as we watch and listen for, and courageously obey, His secret
guidance, leading each of us along the way of Jesus.
One can indeed find treasures of wisdom and pearls of
beauty in the various religions and traditions whereby men and women have
sought and served God throughout human history.
However, the one supreme treasure, the one pearl precious beyond all compare
is Jesus
of Nazareth -- God's supreme revelation of His very own Being as the God-of-
universal-love, in His only begotten Son-made-man, by His Gift of the Spirit of
them Both -- Who is to be found uniquely
in the Eucharist and in the Scriptures of the Universal Catholic and Christian Church
which is His Body, and which is unfailingly sustained and infallibly guided by God’s
Holy Spirit into all truth about eternal life and salvation.
The question now is: what are you doing about that
treasure, what efforts are you willing to make to ensure that that pearl offered
you may indeed become yours for all eternity? Pope St. Gregory the Great tells
a story which goes something like this: imagine someone going on, let us say, a
journey on the Orient Express, travelling in luxury towards some wonderful
destination, let us imagine, Venice. It
is a long journey; deliberately so, because the trip is meant to embrace many
places of great interest along the way: places of beauty such as mountain
villages and places of curious attraction, such as ancient bazaars. Let us further imagine that the train stops
at some of these places and, on one particular day, allows passengers to alight
in order to visit a bazaar, a most famous one, during a two-hour stop by the
Orient Express. One passenger goes from
stall to stall, into one bar or boutique after another; he haggles here and there
for bargains to take back, and in this delightful process forgets all about the
destination for which he had set out on this long, expensive, journey! He forgets about Venice, the uniquely
situated and wonderfully adorned city of history, culture and beauty, and loses
himself in that smelly bazaar, distracted by little trinkets peddled by the
hawkers there, and forgets all about, the train. What a fool!
People of God, so many Christians, so many Church members, are
like that foolish traveller, allowing themselves to be distracted from seeking
the Lord, by the pleasures and cares of life.
Others there are, who once were true servants of the Lord, but who --
over time – disastrously allowed themselves to lose their fervour and finally
their faith. We saw that in the life of
King Solomon -- beloved of God -- as we heard in the first reading:
In Gibeon the LORD appeared to
Solomon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask something of Me and I will give it
to you.” Solomon answered: “O LORD, my
God, Give Your servant, an understanding heart to judge
Your people and to distinguish right from wrong. For who is able to govern this vast people of
Yours?”
The LORD was pleased that Solomon made such a request. However, King Solomon did not persevere in
following the Lord’s statutes and commandments, becoming distracted from God by
his success, by the loves of his life, and by the praises lavished on him:
When Solomon was old his wives
turned his heart to strange gods, and his heart was not entirely with the LORD
his God, as the heart of his father David had been.
People of God, the gospel-treasure hidden in the
Scriptures, the pearl at the centre of Church life, the delight of our Catholic
conscience, is Jesus, the Word of God, now become our Saviour and our Glory,
and Who ultimately will be our sublimely rich reward:
I rejoice in Your Word like one
who discovers a great treasure. (Ps. 119:162 NLT)
It is for us to persevere as the prophet Micah (6:8)
advises:
You have been told, O man, what
is good, and what the LORD requires of you: only to do right and to love
goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.
Finally, dear Catholic and Christian people, notice something
that is in every one of our Sunday readings and which it is absolutely
essential for us to know and avert to today; namely, the existence, the importance,
and indeed the ultimately decisive reality of divinely distinguished GOOD as
distinct from BAD, of RIGHT as distinct from WRONG:
O Lord my God, give Your servant
an understanding heart to judge Your people and to distinguish right from
wrong.
The Kingdom of heaven is like a
net thrown into the sea. When it is full,
they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets, what is
bad they throw away. Thus it will be
at the end of the age. The angels will
separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery
furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Let us not, therefore, be put off by having to make decisions
for what is right and good, against what is wrong and evil, for that which is
good is an essential part of our Christian life and witness to Our Lord Jesus
Christ in today’s adulterous world. In
Jesus we are being led on a journey of sanctification, and our destination is
eternal glory as children of God. That is the hall-mark of a true Catholic and
Christian. But, if the Spirit is no
longer able to move us in Jesus towards the Father, then we might end up like
those nominal Catholics mentioned in our third parable today, bad fish not fit
to be in the Church’s net.
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