“Encountering the Great Treasure of God’s Love” - 17th Sunday OT (A) - 7.30.23
“Encountering the Great Treasure of God’s Love”
By: Fr. David Schmidt
St. Mark the Evangelist Parish - St. Kilian Church - Cranberry, PA
Mass Readings - https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/073023.cfm
In the Gospel today we hear two different parables. The first being the man who finds a treasure buried in a field, and upon finding this treasure, he goes and sells everything that he has to buy the field, so that he can obtain this treasure that he found. We also hear the parable of the pearl of great price. How the merchant who goes out in search of these fine pearls, finds the pearl of great price, and so he goes sells everything that he has to obtain this one pearl.
And we know that the symbolism of these parables is that the treasure and pearl of great price is Jesus Himself, is God’s love. And how God’s love, and Christ Himself is worth selling everything in this world to obtain.
Do we actually believe this? Do we actually believe this in depths our hearts that this is true about God’s love? That it is the great treasure, the pearl of great price, and that it is worth selling everything for?
I think many of us believe this intellectually, but I think for many people they don’t believe this in their heart. We are told so often that God’s love is enough and that it is the greatest thing we could ever imagine. However, many people have never truly encountered God’s love in a way that makes them believe this with all their hearts. They have never come to truly know the person of Jesus Christ. And therefore, they don’t view God’s love as worth selling everything for. They view it as a nice concept, and they know that they are loved, but His love is not the type of thing that they value enough to make it worth giving up everything in this world for.
We can be told about God’s love all we want, and we can hear it told to us at nauseum, but until we actually encounter the love of God and experience for ourselves how His love is enough to satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts, we won’t be willing to “sell everything” to attain this love because we won’t know the true value of this love.
Maybe this is your experience. Maybe you’ve heard this truth about how God’s love is enough to satisfy every desire of the heart, but you’ve never encountered His love in a way to really believe it.
There are many faithful Catholics who have never had an actual encounter with God’s love. The type of encounter with His love that sets our heart on fire and makes us want to follow God with our whole hearts, and make us willing to “sell” everything to possess this love forever.
This is something that St. Mother Teresa noted with her religious community as there were religious sisters, brothers, and fathers that she worried had never truly come to know the Lord’s love in their heart even though they had already given their life away fully to God in their religious vocation.
St. Mother Teresa wrote in a letter to her community,
“I worry some of you still have not really met Jesus—one to one—you and Jesus alone. We may spend time in chapel—but have you seen with the eyes of your soul how He looks at you with love? Do you really know the living Jesus—not from books but from being with Him in your heart? Have you heard the loving words He speaks to you? Ask for the grace, He is longing to give it... Never give up this daily intimate contact with Jesus as the real living person—not just the idea. How can we last even one day without hearing Jesus say “I love you”—impossible.”
We’ve heard about Jesus. We’ve heard about His love. I trust that each of us in here loves Jesus, and that’s why we are here, and we also believe that Jesus loves us too.
However, Mother in her letter is speaking of something so much deeper. A love that emerges from a real encounter. A one-on-one encounter with our Lord where it is just you and Him alone.
Mother talks about being seen by Jesus. Truly seen. There is a deep desire within each of our hearts to be seen, known and loved. To be seen for who we truly are in all our strengths and weaknesses and faults and still be loved. To be known by someone through and through. For them to know every part of our heart and who we are, and for that person to still love us.
It is powerful to see ourselves under the gaze of Christ’s love. He looks at us with such tenderness and love. He sees us completely. There is no hiding from Him.
It is powerful to see Jesus looking into those areas of our hearts that are dark and where we feel shame, and Him saying, “I love you.”
When Jesus looks into our eyes and into the depths of our soul, He sees everything, and still loves us. He desires for us to look into His eyes and see Him gazing at us with pure love. He wants us to know how much He loves us. How He longs for us.
Today, we are reminded that God’s love is the treasure that we seek. It is worth selling everything to obtain because it is worth infinitely more than all the greatest things of this world combined.
God is asking us the same question as He asked Solomon in our first reading, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.”
We shouldn’t ask for frivolous things of this world. We need to be like Solomon and ask for the right things. We need to ask for Christ alone, and to experience His love in a way we never have before.
We need to pray to really meet Jesus especially if we feel like we have never actually met Him before even though we have been coming to Mass our whole life.
We need to ask Him to help us hear Him speaking into the depths of our hearts, “I love you.”
Jesus is a real and living person. He wants to encounter us in a way we have never experienced before. I encourage you to open your heart to Him, and when Jesus asks you the question, “Ask anything of me and I will give it to you” to respond by saying, “I want nothing but you Jesus. I want nothing but your love.”
Pray that you may see Jesus gazing upon you with pure love. Pray that with the ears of your heart, you may hear Jesus speaking so lovingly into the depths of your heart, saying, “I love you.” So that when we have this personal encounter with the love of Jesus Christ, it may lead us to sell everything we have to obtain the great treasure of God’s love.
*Excerpts from The “Varanasi Letter” written by Mother Teresa in March, 1993. https://saint-max.org/Portals/0/Files/Parish/IThirst/Varanasi%20Letter.pdf?ver=2020-09-01-102933-867
*Image - "Parable of the Hidden Treasure" (c. 1630) by Rembrandt
