Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Who is the person who hid this treasure, and why did they hide it? What do you think? Keep in mind that this is the seventh parable about the Kingdom of heaven. From what I read the treasure is put there by the Holy Spirit so that we can find Christ and share in his life, not just when we die, but today, right now, if you believe this gospel. Our treasure is to become children of God and to live in total freedom as his sons and daughters.
How do you think the person found this treasure? Did he find it when he was plowing the field, or did he trip over a piece that was sticking up from the ground, or did he hear some local prophesy and guess that it was there? There is one thing we can know for sure: he did not find it by staying home and watching Netflix! It does not mean I have to know exactly what I am looking for but I have to see that I really need this treasure. God is the one who takes the initiative. And his grace or his help influences me before I am aware of it.
Three hundred young people went door to door for a week announcing the gospel without money or cell phone and only the clothes on their back and a return bus ticket home. They came back very happy even those who were rejected. Not only did they announce the gospel but many found much more deeply the meaning of their life. It was not what they expected but God helped them enormously. It is not that we find God, but that he found us. He hides himself and lets us find him. He even let’s us think that we are doing all the effort when it is really him.
When I was in college and not going to church for many years I spent a year in Austria and my best class was Art History with a very knowledgeable person who showed us Rome and many amazing works of Christian art. It was the next year that I went back to church and confession because of some Catholics that I met on Wall Street where I worked after college. For sure God was already working on me showing me all that beautiful art.
The man in the gospel when he finds the treasure he goes and sells all he has with joy and buys that field in order to secure the treasure. He is full of joy and sells all he has. I did something very similar to that. These parables are very powerful way to understand how God acts in our lives.
Even Nancy Pelosi would like the parable of the dragnet because it is very democratic. The net catches everything: all kinds of fish and all sizes. This parable is about the judgment at the end of time when we are all summoned before God. We are like those fish in the net. Did we eat good food or settle for garbage and poisonous things? Do we reproduce plentifully or did we remain sterile and cautious? God gave us everything that we have and what did we do with it??? All the fish are free to do what they want but at the end they have to give an account of what they did.
The man in the story separates the fish according to whether they are beautiful or rotten according to the original words that Jesus spoke. It was something that the man could see or smell very easily.
This gospel is much more than a parable. It is the truth of what will happen to you and me and everyone when we die. I pray that it wake us up and help us to see that not everyone is equally pleasing to God. The separation into one bucket or another will happen because of the choices we made in life. This gospel comes to help us to turn around when we see that we are going in the wrong direction. It is a Good News if we see that God is trying to help us and he uses this gospel for this purpose. He always gives us another chance.
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