Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, July 25, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) (Vigil)
July 25, 2020

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday.
• Jesus will give us two, I like to call them twin, parables that sum up the approach we should have to him and to our faith. The parables are simple enough to understand. The first is of a poor peasant finding a buried treasure in the midst of his work in the field. There were no real banks to speak of in ancient Palestine. People would often bury things of value in secret locations in fields. There was no sense of “finders keepers, losers weepers”; whatever was discovered in a field belonged not to the discoverer but the owner. That’s why the man needed to buy the field. It’s quite obvious that the one selling had no idea that an ancient treasure was buried on his property. He didn’t place the same value in the field as much as his peasant did and so he sold it. For the peasant, selling all he said in order to get the money to buy the field was nothing compared to what he knew he would be gaining.
• The second parable is of a wealthy merchant searching for precious pearls, going from place to place in pursuit of something truly valuable and beautiful. Finally he found the pearl of his dreams, whose worth was unsurpassable, but whose owner valued it less than the money he would get in exchange. And so the wealthy merchant sold all that he had before, doubtless houses, gems and other valuables, to obtain that pearl of great price.
• I’d like to focus on three spiritual lessons Jesus teaches us in these parables.
• The first quality is an insatiable desire for the treasure of the kingdom of God, which is basically an unquenchable thirst for God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt 6:21). He told us in that same Sermon that many of us seek to “store up for [ourselves] treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,” but he wanted us to “store up for [ourselves] treasures in heaven,” a treasure not measured in clothing that moths can wreck, metals that rust can corrode, or money that thieves or taxes can take. Jesus is telling us that our heart must be set on God, and not just in general, but more than Tom Brady wants to win another Super Bowl, more than an ambitious politician seeks to win high office, and more than a man in love will do everything he can to win over and marry the woman he can’t stop thinking about.
• The second is a recognition of where the treasure of the kingdom can be found. The merchant in the parable knew the places he needed to go, and so he visited the shops and markets where pearls would be sold. The farmer wasn’t so much searching for a buried treasure, but what he discovered it in the middle of his workday tilling new parts of the property that had not yet been farmed for the landowner, he knew what to do. Where do we go to find the treasure? We find God in personal prayer, we find him in the Sacraments, especially Mass and confession. We can find him speaking to us in Sacred Scripture. We find him radiantly shining in the lives and writings of the saints. We find him living within us in the truly Christian moral life with virtue. We can find him in the loving service of our neighbor, since every time we care for someone who is hungry, thirsty, naked, a stranger, ill, imprisoned or otherwise in need, Jesus tells us that we, through them, are caring for him. But in order for us to find God there, we need to grasp that each of the things I just named is a treasure, because whenever we don’t think that what we’re dealing with is a treasure, it’s going to be almost impossible for us to find God there.
• The third virtue needed is the willingness to sacrifice everything to obtain that treasure, for if we’re not prepared to sacrifice everything for the treasure, we’ll often not be willing to sacrifice far less than everything to obtain it either. The rich pearl hunter and the poor hardworking peasant sold all they had to obtain the pearl and field, respectively. Likewise, we need to do more than hunger for the kingdom and recognize where we can find it; we also need to be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to seize it. The apostles are the great illustrations of those who, when finding a treasure, left all they had to follow Jesus. When the Lord Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John from their boats right after they had captured the largest catch in their careers, the evangelists told us, they left “immediately” and followed him. Likewise, when Jesus came to find St. Matthew at his tax collecting post and said, “Follow me!,” Matthew left all the money on the table, all the ledgers, and immediately got up to follow Jesus. St. Peter would later summarize the common characteristic of the apostles when he turned to Jesus and said, “We have given up everything and followed you.” That’s in sharp contrast to the one who is famous for not leaving everything to follow Jesus and instead walked away from him. When Jesus told the Rich Young Man, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then, come, follow me!,” he was too addicted to his material possessions to leave them behind. He chose his stuff over Jesus and “went away sad.” Many are like him. They say their prayers each day. They come to Mass on Holy Days of Obligation. They come to Confession at least once a year. They get married in the Church. They contribute to charity and support the Church. But they’re not really as happy in the faith as God wants them to be. They’re missing something, because something is holding them back; their earthly treasure has begun to own them.
• This type of attitude toward the kingdom, toward sacrificing good things for the greatest thing of all, explains all the greatness that happens in individual lives and happens in the Church. It explains martyrdom. It explains how to suffer and to die well, for those who really seek first God and his kingdom, then death is not dreaded but desired. It explains vocations to the priesthood and to religious and consecrated life. It explains what makes vibrant parishes, because it’s in those parishes that people sacrifice huge amounts of their time, their money, and their expertise to build them initially and build them up continuously.
• And the best place to make that choice for the Kingdom is at Mass. St. John Vianney, the patron saints of priests, once talked about how the Mass is the pearl of great price: “Next to this sacrament,” he said, “we are like someone who dies of thirst next to a river, just needing to bend the head down to drink; or like a poor man next to a treasure chest, when all that is needed is to stretch out the hand” and grab the gold coins. Jesus in the Eucharist is that treasure that quenches our thirst, that makes us truly rich. That joy, that treasure, is ours receive. That is what Jesus offers: the deal of an eternal lifetime. Let’s beg for the wisdom and the courage necessary to sacrifice whatever we need to do to make that deal.

The Gospel on which the homily was based was: 

MT 13:44-52 OR 13:44-46

Podcast: Play in new window | Download