The Kingdom: Surprises and Searches

Saint Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)

(Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on July 26, 2020 at San Gregorio Magno al Cielo and the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See 1 Kings 3:5-12 and Matthew 13:44-52)

For the past several weeks we have been listening to St. Matthew’s Gospel and the parables of Jesus on the kingdom of heaven.  In the parable of the sower, it is the word of God that can find rich soil and bear tremendous fruit for the kingdom (Matthew 13:3-9).  Then Jesus teaches that the kingdom of heaven is like a field filled with wheat, but suddenly there appear weeds along with the wheat; through patience and discernment the wheat grows and is later sifted and gathered for the kingdom, while the weeds are collected and burned (Matthew 13:24-30).    This morning Jesus gives us the final three parables in that series.  We hear that:

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.  When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.

—Matthew 13:44-46  

Both of these parables are very similar.  As soon as the treasure is discovered, or the pearl is found, the person sells everything in order to fully possess that awesome gift.  There is a sense of joy and transformation that accompanies the kingdom of God, changing one’s entire outlook and experience.  

At the same time, however, those two parables are quite different.  We can begin with the treasure found in the field.  Firstly, how likely is that to happen?  Actually, in the time of Christ, it would not have been uncommon.  This parable is being told in Roman-occupied Palestine.  In many places in the world at that time, and even in places in our own world today, there was instability and the possible threat of invasion and forced migration.  If you were a wealthy land owner, and had many possessions and personal items of great value, you might put them all together and bury them somewhere on your property.  The hope would be to flee from the imminent danger, and return afterward and take up your treasure once again.  For many, perhaps that day would never come.  It would not have been so uncommon, in Jesus time, for a person to find treasure in a field.

The point of the parable is that the discovery of the treasure comes as a total surprise.  Indeed, when the man finds it, he quickly hides it again, and with great joy he goes and sells everything he has so he can buy that entire field (why take a chance?!) and have that treasure forever.

How different is the parable about the pearl of great price.  There was not so much surprise as a profound sense of wonder and satisfaction when the merchant finally discovers what he has longed for all along.  He had been searching for precisely a pearl such as this one!  Perhaps he had traveled far, and at the great expense of time and money.  No matter!  He sees that pearl and is completely captivated by its beauty.

In our own lives, the kingdom of heaven captures both of these dimensions.  When it comes to our faith, or our experience of God at the core of our vocation, there is something there of a total surprise.  To suddenly recognize who we are in Christ, and how much value God places on us, is astounding.  Who among us could have ever imagined that God would offer His only Son so that He could have us with Him in heaven for all eternity?  It is an incredible and amazing surprise, a treasure stumbled upon in the field.  

Even so, deep within our hearts we have always longed for a love like this.  We yearn and pine for the kind of relationship that accepts us unconditionally, that cares for us and challenges us to become all that we were always meant to be.  Even once we have discovered our vocation, and heard the voice of God calling us into a deeper relationship with Himself, we continue to search all the more deeply.  We want to know, to discern as many details as possible to find out what will please God and how we can become more completely those fruitful and faithful disciples of Christ that we hear about in the Gospel.

An excellent example for us this weekend is found in the first reading, from the First Book of Kings.  We hear about King Solomon, who at a very young age finds himself as ruler of one of the greatest nations in the world.  Indeed, he prays to the Lord, “I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted” (1 Kings 3:8).  Solomon had done nothing to receive this remarkable privilege and responsibility.  His father, King David, had amassed tremendous wealth and resources so that Solomon could build the temple.  On one level, he possessed everything a man could want to be happy.  Nonetheless, he had the humility to realize that there was still more that he needed to discover.  When God comes to him and invites him to ask for anything (imagine!), he responds:

O Lord, my God, you have made me, your servant, king to succeed my father, David: but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act . . . Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.  For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?

—1 Kings 3:7-9

It is a beautiful prayer that begins Solomon’s journey into a world of sagacity and insight.  God responds to him, “I give you a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one to equal you” (1 Kings 3:12).  But it could not have been automatic.  Solomon did not download a lifetime of wisdom.  He would have had to apply himself to long hours of study, and it would take years for him to learn all that was necessary to govern God’s people.  Of course, we also know that one of the greatest “teachers” is failure.  How many humiliations and failings did young Solomon experience before he gained the interior knowledge of the heart that alone is worthy of guiding God’s own people?  This young man, who had found the treasure in the field, also sought passionately for the pearl of great price.

Closer to our own time, we can reflect on the life of St. Teresa of Calcutta.  As a young religious she had answered the call of God and was faithful, content and fruitful.  At the age of thirty six, on her way by train to make her annual retreat about 100 miles north of Calcutta, suddenly she received a profound “call within a call.”  Jesus was crying out to her, inviting her to discover Him in the poorest of the poor.  He revealed to her that He was hiding in the darkest holes of the earth, naked, hungry, rejected and alone.  “Come, be my light,” He beckoned her.  She would spend the rest of her life discovering what that meant and how God was inviting her to answer this mysterious invitation.  

For all of us, we have stumbled upon the treasure in the field, an identity and meaning in life that goes beyond anything we could have ever imagined.  Still, we are invited to explore that reality more and more deeply each day, to truly seek out the pearl of great price in the heart of our vocation. 

In conclusion, Jesus offers one final parable, the net cast into the sea, capturing fish of every kind, and a lot of other sordid things.  Once the net us full, what is good is placed in buckets and what is bad is thrown away.  It is a parable about the final judgment, and Jesus offers the clearest of interpretations for us all: 

Thus it will be at the end of the age.  The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

—Matthew 13:49-50

We are all called by God, all given the amazing invitation to discover and embrace the riches of the kingdom.  Yet Jesus teaches us also that we will stand before Him and give an account at the end of our lives for how we have received—or not—that kingdom.  St. John of the Cross writes that, “at the twilight of life, we will be judged by love.”  There is something very comforting and consoling about that reality.  At the end of our lives, we will be judged by the God who is Love, who gave His only Son to save us and give us new life.  Still, we are called to receive and then offer that same love to both God and neighbor.  That is what it means to be part of the kingdom of heaven.

This morning we can ask ourselves, how have we appreciated and offered thanksgiving for this treasure we have discovered as a total surprise and an overwhelming gift?  How are we continuing to seek and search for the fulfillment God’s kingdom each day, bearing the fruit of love in what we say and in all that we do?  This is the gift of God, and it is worth everything if we may only recognize it, embrace it and spend all eternity entering into it more deeply.

Patience of God in the Face of Evil

St. Maria Goretti (1890-1902)

(Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on July 19, 2020 in Rome, Italy; See Matthew 13:24-43)

Our Gospel for this weekend touches upon the question of evil.  Theology sometimes refers to it as the scandal of evil, because it is a reality that causes many to stumble in their faith and to become confused in their relationship with God.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church insists that there is no quick answer or facile solution to this question.  Instead, it provides a more comprehensive and even expansive explanation, one that includes the entire story of creation, the fall, redemption and the final judgment:

Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin, and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, the gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments, and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance.

—CCC, #309

 So much for quick solutions or easy answers!  Basically, the entire Christian faith is alone sufficient to answer the question of evil.  Importantly, the Catechism goes on to phrase that same answer, negatively, in a manner that is even more compelling: “There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.”

An essential way of engaging that mystery, then, would be to avoid any immediate or hasty solutions and basically to live fully the Christian faith in the particular circumstances of one’s life.  That sounds rather simple, but in fact it is a very challenging thing to do.  In particular, when we encounter the crosses of life or experience the question of evil in a particularly painful way, it requires faith and trust in God and dependency upon His amazing grace.  

The Church gives us a remarkable example of this response in the life and canonization of St. Maria Goretti.  Maria was born in Ancona, here in Italy, in 1890.  The Goretti’s eventually moved to Nettuno where they shared a house with Giovanni Serenelli and his son, Alessandro.  The arrangement allowed both families to share the expenses while maintaining together the farm connected to their property.

Alessandro, although 8 years older than Maria, developed a sinful desire for her and harassed her often with his unwanted sexual advances.  Seeing her alone one day, he threatened her with violence if she did not give in to him.  Maria outrightly refused, insisting, “It is a sin, and God doesn’t want it.”  She also insisted that this sin would destroy him, and he would go to hell.  In a rage, Alessandro turned on her and stabbed her multiple times, leaving her for dead.  

Finding Maria bleeding to death on the floor of the house, the family brought her to the hospital where they operated on her without anaesthesia.  At one point, when asked about Alessandro, she replied, “I forgive him out of love for Jesus.  I want Alessandro to join me in heaven.”  Maria died the next day.  She was eleven years old.  

Although Alessandro was convicted and sentenced to thirty years in prison, he remained impenitent.  Far from showing any signs of remorse, he was menacing to the guards that watched over him.  One evening, about six years after he entered the prison, Alessandro had a dream where Maria appeared to him and offered him a bouquet of lilies.  Receiving those flowers, which are traditionally a symbol of purity, they immediately burst into flames and turned to ashes in his hands.  When he awoke, his life began to change completely and he took responsibility for what he had done.  

After 27 years, Alessandro was released from prison and he sought out Maria’s mother, Assunta, to beg her for forgiveness.  Assunta considered how Maria, even as she lay dying, had forgiven Alessandro.   She made the challenging decision to follow that same example.  It was Christmas Eve, 1937. Not only did Assunta forgive him, but she also attended Midnight Mass with Alessandro, and the two knelt side-by-side at the communion rail to receive the Blessed Sacrament.

In 1950 Pope Pius XII Canonized St. Maria Goretti, at that time one of the largest canonization celebrations in the history of the Church.  Both Assunta and Alessandro were present.  Alessandro entered a Franciscan monastery after his imprisonment, and spent the rest of his life caring for the garden there and seeking to devote himself to the Christian faith.  He certainly would have been told about  St. Maria Goretti’s dying words, “I forgive him out of love for Jesus.  I want Alessandro to join me in heaven,”  and he spent the rest of his life seeking to make her desire a reality.

In the Gospel of Matthew this weekend, we listen to the “Parable of the Weeds and Wheat.”  The servants of the field go to the owner, recognizing that there are weeds in the midst of the wheat  that he had sowed.  The owner responds, “An enemy has done this.”  The servants are all too eager, of course, to solve that problem immediately:

'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'  He replied, 'No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.  Let them grow together until harvest.

—Mathew 13:28-30

The owner goes on to say that the harvesters will do the sifting at the harvest time, and they will separate the weeds from the wheat.  Later, in the interpretation of that parable, Jesus indicates that the harvesters are the angels.

Imagine, for a moment, if the angels did not have the chance to sift through the life of Alessandro Serenelli because those around him already did it for them!  It would have been very easy, and perhaps would have even seemed just, if he had been condemned and forgotten in those years following the death of St. Maria.  How much patience and forgiveness did Assunta have to have to remain steadfast in her own faith, and then to forgive the man that had taken away her daughter?  How many others had looked upon Alessandro simply as a monster, and not a man worthy of life?  Yet the drama of the Christian faith, in all its many facets, was being lived out in the circumstances that unfolded.  It is no different in the drama of our own lives.

In his inaugural homily in April 2005, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reflected on the mystery of evil and our need for patience when we encounter the trials of life.  He spoke of how painful it can be to endure the misfortunes of evil, and how tempting it is for us to seek quick solutions:

“How often we wish that God would show himself stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world.  All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God’s patience.

And yet, we need his patience. God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.”

Here at this altar, we draw near to Jesus, the lamb of God, who comes to take away the sins of the world.  We come to receive Him, and ask for the grace to enter more deeply into the patience of God.  May our lives, united to Christ in the power of the Eucharist, continue to be a living witness to God’s response to the problem of evil.