Dear Friends in Christ,
Imagine if you were the person whom Jesus speaks about in this Sunday’s Gospel! Indeed, most of us could not imagine finding a buried treasure. How would you feel when you discovered it? How excited would you be to examine it thoroughly and find out how much it was worth? How would your life change when you sold it and had enough money to never worry about financial woes again?
The Parable of The Treasure Buried in A Field is about the joy of discovering Christ. In the parable, the finder “sells all that he has and buys that field.” Indeed, the finder recognizes that nothing he has and nothing he is doing is more important than the treasure he has found. The joy of the one who finds the treasure reflects the spiritual knowing that one is loved by God beyond measure and is welcomed by God into friendship. In such joy, the new Christian recognizes that everything he
wants he will find in that friendship.
In our contemporary world, the “treasure” that many aspire to find is not Christ. Rather, power, fame, career success, worldly riches and pleasure claim first place in the hearts of today’s people. Without faith, people believe that when they find these things they will be truly happy. Yet, the underlying restlessness in their hearts is never satisfied and they seek to fill the emptiness within
themselves with that which cannot satisfy them. How do we convince others that the treasure of Christ that we have found in our lives is worth discovering? Probably, the way that we live and the peace that we have, in the midst of struggle, will suggest to others that Christ is someone worth having in one’s life. Our belief in prayer’s power, our desire to come to Mass and receive the Sacraments, our interest in learning about our Faith and studying Scripture and our generosity in caring for our parish and those in need show that we have found the “treasure” buried in the field. We pray that more people of today will look for and discover that same treasure.
In Christ,
Fr. Michael