Seventeeth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, July 29, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, A, Vigil
July 29, 2023

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, when Jesus will give us two inspiring, 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 someone else’s 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, and 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 wants us to learn from 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 declared 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 communicating that our heart must be set on God, and not just in general, but more than star athletes want to win another championship, ambitious politicians seek to win higher office, and a man in love does 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 crisscrossed the ancient world visiting the shops and markets where pearls would be sold. The farmer wasn’t so much searching for a buried treasure, but when he discovered it in the middle of his workday tilling new parts of the landowner’s property that had not yet been farmed, 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 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 truly to find God in these ways, we need to grasp that each of the things I just named is a treasure, since 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 it, we’ll often not be willing to sacrifice far less than everything to obtain it, either. The rich gem 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 tell 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, even all his precious ledgers, and immediately got up to follow Jesus. St. Peter would summarize the common characteristic of the apostles when he turned to said to Jesus, “We have given up everything and followed you.” That generosity, that risk-taking, that capacity to sacrifice the good for the better and the best, stands 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!,” the wealthy young man was too addicted to his material possessions to leave them behind. He chose his stuff over Jesus and, the Gospel writers tell us, “went away sad.” Many are like him. They say their prayers each day. They come to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. They go to Confession. They get married in the Church. They contribute to charity and support their parish and the good works of their diocese. 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 so many adult conversions at great cost within families and societies. It explains martyrdom, because the martyrs account even their life here on earth less valuable than fidelity to God and living in his kingdom forever. It explains the lives of the saints — like Saints Ignatius of Loyola, Alphonsus Ligouri, Peter Julien Eymard, and St. John Vianney whom the Church celebrates this week at daily Mass— because they’re the ones who let go of so many great worldly expectations in order to become truly rich in God and his kingdom. It explains how to suffer and to die well, because for those who really seek first God and his kingdom, death is not dreaded but desired, since even though we have to leave behind so loved ones and good things, we recognize that all of these goods are nothing in comparison with “what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9). It explains vocations to the priesthood and to religious and consecrated life, because those who say yes to these callings put God above families of their own, his love above human loves, his will above their will, his kingdom above amassing a kingdom of their own; and these vocations often come from families that are seeking, recognizing and sacrificing for the pearl of great price who is God by sacrificing social media for prayer, sports leagues for Mass, their own vacations to care for others. It explains vibrant parishes, because it’s in those places that Catholics sacrifice their time, money, and expertise to build them and help them grow. It explains truly joyful homes, which arise from situations where family members and fellow residents willingly and repeatedly sacrifice to make others happy, to do things not because they have to but because they choose to out of love.
• And the best place to grow in choosing 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 who quenches our thirst, who makes us truly rich. That joy, that treasure, is ours to receive. That is what Jesus offers: the deal of an eternal lifetime. As we prepare for Mass this Sunday, 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: 

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