The Joy Of Finding The Real Treasure

𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐘 𝟑𝟎, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓: 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐇 𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐊 𝐈𝐍 𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄

𝟏𝐬𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐄𝐱𝐨 𝟑𝟒:𝟐𝟗-𝟑𝟓

𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐦: 𝐏𝐬𝐚 𝟗𝟗:𝟓-𝟕, 𝟗 “𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐆𝐨𝐝.”

𝐆𝐎𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐋: 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓 𝟏𝟑:𝟒𝟒-𝟒𝟔

𝑲𝒆𝒚 𝑽𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆: “..𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒊𝒕.” (𝒗.46)

         When we read this Gospel passage today in Matthew’s Gospel, there are certain realities that we will be confronted with and how we will respond will determine our final destination.

         While many of us are at times mystified by these parables we should keep in mind that Jesus was addressing the Jews, and the target audience of Matthew is also the Jewish nation. As such, both Jesus and Matthew who recorded and later wrote about the spoken words that were drawn from the preaching and teaching of his Master, the parables reflect the Jewish way of life and culture.

         And Jesus used this methodology of delivering his message in a way that the Jews can easily understand because the people can identify with the situation that they experience in their lives, and this parable is no different because many of the Jews at that time work on the land and on the fields.

         Because there were no depository banks at the time, it was also natural for some of the Jews to keep their valuable items and or treasure for that matter in carefully dug-up holes on the ground which will also explain why the worthless servant in the parable of the talents decided to dig a hole to keep the money entrusted to him instead of investing it.

         What Jesus through this parable is trying to tell us is to have the attitude of the man who found the treasure hidden on a field or what the merchant did when he found a pearl of great price.

         The reality here from which we can draw a parallelism with our present-day lives is that both the man and the merchant were doing what they are supposed to do every day except on the Sabbath. Both were working at the time – the man was working on the field. He must have been a tenant otherwise he could have been identified as the owner of the field. When he found the treasure hidden beneath the ground, he sold all his possessions and bought the field he was working on.

         The merchant, on the other hand, did his daily rounds looking for something that he could invest and later sell at a profit. This is what he does for a living. And in those times, the pearl was the loveliest thing in the world. The people during the time of Jesus were fascinated by the pearl not only because it is valuable but because of its beauty and they take pleasure in just holding it in their hands and looking at it.

         And the merchant like everyone else like him are always in search of a pearl of unparalleled beauty and just like the man who dug up a treasure, the merchant who saw the pearl of great price left and later on returned after selling everything he had to buy and take possession of the pearl which to him was the loveliest pearl he ever saw.

         Similarly, we spend almost a lifetime in our search for true peace and genuine happiness and when we find it, we may have to give up certain if not many things in our lives be it ambition, position, fame and or the insatiable appetite to accumulate wealth; turn away from what to us has become a habit and a way of life which we find difficult to give up; we may need to give up on our comfortable lifestyles in exchange for the cross in the mission field; and certainly the vices that gives us pleasure that are fleeting like smoking, drinking, sex, gambling that we need to give up.

         Both the man and the merchant may have lived a clean life, but we don’t know that. Or they may have spent their lives with pleasure whenever they earned from the pursuit of their work. We don’t know that either. But in my lifetime, especially when I was still single, I used my money for things that I thought would give me pleasure. I smoked three packs of cigarettes a day, I got drunk almost every night, I gambled, and I frequented nightclubs and bars.

         Nothing changed when I got married except that now I have a family to go home to. But the craving for material things persisted especially when I started earning from the business I was involved in. The standard also changed. Instead of bars and nightclubs, now my friends and I frequent the bars at the five-star hotels. I still gambled but no longer on the gaming tables but on the golf course.

         But everything changed when I was invited to the Marriage Encounter Weekend of the BLD and when I took the Life in the Spirit Seminar, it transported me to the same situation that the man and the merchant were in when they found the treasure and the pearl of great price.

         The moral of the story in these two situations is that both the man and the merchant gave up their possessions to acquire that which to them is worth than everything they had. I too must give up practically everything that I possessed including my job in the media when I found what to me is the treasure and the pearl of great price – the Kingdom of Heaven.

         And Jesus likened the treasure that the man discovered and the pearl of great price that the merchant found and bought to the Kingdom of Heaven. This is so because there is no other way that will lead us to peace and happiness in this life and to the glory of the life to come than to give up everything to accept the Will of God because to enter the Kingdom of Heaven is premised on accepting and doing the Will of God.

         Tomorrow will be the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola who will be remembered for saying: “𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘵, 𝘐’𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘪𝘵” that runs counter to the familiar phrase we often hear: “𝘐’𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘪𝘵.” In a book written by Rev. Fr. David Fleming, SJ, he wrote that St. Ignatius of Loyola has observed that our vision largely controls our perception, If we think the world is a bleak place, full of evil, greedy, selfish people who have no love for God or each other, that’s what we will see when we look around. (𝘌𝘥 𝘔𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘺 – 𝘑𝘶𝘭𝘺 30, 2025)