Seventeenth of Year A - Understanding & priority of values
July 2008
We all experience unfullfilment at some stage of our lives or maybe even throughout our lives.
We all experience from time to time or even all the time that we have somehow missed the boat.
We all experience sometimes or maybe all the time that life has passed us by and left us empty and our life without meaning.
Today’s Gospel deals with this condition.
The point of the parable is the behaviour of both persons.
Firstly, both were searching.
They were dissatisfied or unfulfilled with their lives up to now.
Secondly, both were overjoyed with their find and without hesitation abandoned what they had valued up to now so as to possess the treasure or pearl.
Both were obviously fairly well off since they had property to sell in order to buy the field or the pearl.
The treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great price is of course God, or as St. Matthew calls it ‘the Kingdom of God.’
Many people find fulfilment and happiness, to a large degree, in marriage and family.
This is so because it involves love which is self-giving, selflessness and sharing.
But St. John tells us; ‘God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.’
One does not continually use one’s neighbour’s lawnmower to cut one’s grass and never acknowledge this in any way.