The priceless treasure

Written by BPNews Team | 28 January 2010

17th Sunday in ordinary time
(Green) Cycle A/ Year II (July 27, 2008)
1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12/ Rom 8:28-30/ Mt 13:44-52

Julius Caesar, upon returning to Rome after his complete victory over king Pharnace at Zela, reported to the Roman Senate proclaiming these Latin words: “Veni, vidi, vici – I came, I saw, I conquered.” The parables in the gospel for this Sunday show the same principle of decisiveness with which Julius Caesar conquered king Pharnace. The discoverer of the hidden treasure in the field and the merchant of pearls, upon seeing a treasure which they consider to be priceless, act in a decisive yet simple way: “they go, they sell, and they buy”. 

Actually, many people of today have the same attitude of Julius Caesar and of the protagonists in the parables. They are keen enough to discover whatever opportunities they may have to acquire whatever they consider to be priceless treasure and bold enough to do everything just to grab such opportunities and make the most of them so as to attain such treasure. The problem lies on what kind of priceless treasure people of today value. Since we are in a materialistic and secular society, it is impossible to deny that generally people consider money to be their priceless treasure. They believe that without money, nobody can live on this earth; much less can he be happy. 

Perhaps, some of us maybe tempted to say that we are not money oriented people; that we live on this earth not for money but for something more significant and important. Yet we have to examine ourselves what kind of thing we do consider to be the reason for our existence; what kind of thing we believe as our priceless treasure. Maybe we work hard to gain status and position in the society or at least security in this life. Or maybe we serve a lot of people and do many charitable works simply because we want to be adulated. In other words, whatever we consider to be our most important values in life and/or our top priority will always serve as our priceless treasure.

The question is: Is our considered treasure really priceless? If our priceless treasure is our house, clothing, food, work, money, power, fame or other materialistic and selfish interest, then such treasure is never really priceless. They can easily be bought or at least can be acquired through personal diligence and others’ benevolence. If, on the other hand, our priceless treasure is rather freedom, or justice, or humility, or love, or other kinds of human or divine virtues, then such treasure can be considered to be priceless because it can never be bought with money but can only be had through perseverance and strong commitment. But the fact is – all those treasures are not really priceless because they can be attained through human efforts. 

The true priceless treasure is that which can never be acquired through human efforts; rather, it is offered as a selfless gift of love from the giver. The Kingdom of God is portrayed by the parables as the priceless treasure which is offered to us freely. In itself, the Kingdom of God can never be acquired through mere human effort nor can be bought with anything. Out of selfless love, God made His Son suffer a horrible death on the cross just for us to be forgiven of our sins, be freed from the bondage to evil and be offered the Kingdom of God. Now, the Kingdom of God lies within our reach. We only have to discover it or to strive to procure it.

But how do we attain such priceless treasure which is the Kingdom of God? The parables suggest to us the principle of decisiveness: Go, sell and buy. Go. This means that we must not only have a conviction of how great and priceless treasure the Kingdom of God is and the decision of acquiring such treasure; we must also act decisively by doing promptly what we have to do. And what do we have to do? First we have to sell; sell everything as the parables say. Selling everything means surrendering all our desires and ambitions, longings and belongings, understanding and will, strength and freedom to the Lord who is the King of the Kingdom of God. In other words, we have to die to ourselves and to our selfishness so that emptying our hearts, God can fill them with the grace and love coming from His Kingdom. 

We must not be afraid to sell everything for we are certain that by selling all and anything that we have, by dying to our selfish desires, God will give us the priceless treasure which is the divine life. And we must dare to sell everything or to die to ourselves because only then can we buy. That is, we can only have the Kingdom of God when we deny ourselves of our wishes and will and put God to be the first priority and the most important being in our lives. To sell means losing oneself to Jesus and to buy means having Jesus as the only Lord and Savior. When we have Jesus as the only priceless treasure, only then can we attain the longing of our hearts: fullness of joy, peace of mind and eternal life.

The Blessed Mother Mary is our model as a disciple of Jesus. Once she discovers God to be her priceless treasure, she sells everything by surrendering her very life to God saying: “Fiat: Let it be done to me according to your word.” Then she buys the priceless treasure by accepting the plan of God for her to be the Mother of the Savior, Jesus Christ. All her life and time she dedicates to her Son and Lord. Let us ask her intercessions so that through her prayers, we may be converted and have the courage to act now; go to Jesus and sell all that we have to Him by offering our whole lives and whole selves. Then Jesus will let us attain the priceless treasure of being the becoming the children of God.