16 (A) Seek real treasure
Sunday 16 (A) 17.7.2011
Fr Bernard McInulty
`The kingdom of heaven is like treasure. The year is 1975. Pope Paul VI had declared it a Holy Year. In September of that year a group of white-habited religious sisters were waiting in Rome’s Ciampino Airport for a flight to Tehran. Among them was my aunt Sister Bridget. These sisters were going out to Iran as missionaries among the Muslim people. They had to learn Farsi, adjust to a different climate, culture and people, and work with the few priests there. However, only two years later they had to flee in the aftermath of the Revolution. Today in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus seems to be using a folktale to describe the supreme value of the reign of God which is worth all that a person has - and more. None of us can gain anything of value without renouncing something. Down the centuries countless men and women have renounced the world to follow Christ in the Priesthood and religious life. They have perceived it as the kingdom of heaven, something of value, a treasure, the pearl of great price. An old monk once told a television journalist that he would not be in the Monastery a single day if he did not think he would get into heaven. Judged by external criteria religious life in the western world appears to be in decline. God is surely saying something to the whole Church in all this. Few if any candidates are joining, religious communities are ageing, houses are being closed and Religious are ceding positions of responsibility to the laity. We are living through a period of numerical decline. Some have even questioned whether religious life itself can survive. However, I am an optimist. I believe that the Holy Spirit is at the root of this crisis. All spirituality is expressed through the Paschal Mystery - the rhythm of life and death which is the only pattern left to us by Jesus. The crisis in religious life today is just another form of the deeper crisis which affects our post-modern world which has lost the sacred connection between our inner and outer lives, our contemplative and active lives, the within and the without. Priests and religious are fragile human beings called by the grace of God - and only by the grace of God - to do extraordinary things.
In the introduction to his book on contemplative prayer, Thomas Merton says that each of us is put on this earth to bear the beams of love. God always takes the initiative but we must respond positively. Our greatest treasure is our faith, but faith can be weak and lukewarm. It can become empty. God calls us today to follow Him to be a sign of His kingdom - by reading, pondering patiently His word in Scripture, and putting it into practice in our lives. The call to holiness is not the prerogative of an elite. It is the fullness of Christian living. The Church needs new saints for the present and for future challenges. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found. He hides it again, goes off happy, sells everything he owns and buys that field.
Young people today are looking for authentic values; searching for true meaning and wholeness. In the parables, Jesus is asking the crowds if they perceive the kingdom of God in the same way – do they really see it as a treasure that is worth more than everything they now value in life? At the end of a long and very moving documentary film on the life and work of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, she said that all of us must stay where we are and find our own Calcutta. Her life became a living Gospel - and so must ours. All of us are vulnerable in some way, all of us are needy. Before God, all of us are as nothing. But by living the Gospel we can slowly surely really change the world. The real treasure is under our noses in the people with whom we share our life, in the opportunities we face every day to exercise the values of Jesus. Blessed Charles de Foucauld, whose life became a living Eucharist wrote on 14 August 1901, `I am a monk living only for God, trying to love others for his sake with all the ardour that is mine. They are his image, the work of his hands, his children, his beloved - made to participate eternally in the Godhead. I cannot be united with him who is uncreated and infinite love, without loving with all my heart according to his word. Love one another. By this they will know that you are my disciple.
As our opening prayer says, “God our father and protector, without you nothing is holy, nothing has value. Guide us to everlasting life by helping us to use wisely the blessings you have given the world.”