Sunday Gospel Comment
Alberic Jacovone OSB
YEAR A SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY - 24.7.05 1 Kg 3,5.7-12; Rom 8,28-30; Mt 13,44-52 What’s
it like to be a Christian? Symbols
& Reality:
Our limited human language cannot express fully the world of God: his immense
wisdom & power, beauty & mercy, & his loving plan for us. We can
only get some understanding through the use of symbols & images. Jesus spoke
about this in terms of “God’s Kingdom”,
using parables & presenting the example of his own life. Jesus taught
that God’s loving plan for us is constantly unfolding on an on-going basis, in
the world, across history and now in our own life-time: He taught that in
God’s kingdom, evil can & will be overcome, that God’s mercy will
triumph, & his grace is extended -unconditionally- to all people across all
races, languages, ages, gender, status... In his own life, through his death on the cross & his Resurrection,
Jesus established once & for all God’s Kingdom. In his preaching he
described it as something which continues grow from generation to generation,
& is constantly moving towards its full realization here & in the
hereafter. In the “Our Father”, we pray that God’s Kingdom may be fully
realized among us now , as it exists already in Heaven. We are all called to
build the Kingdom, following Jesus’ teaching & example. To speak about
this, Jesus chose the language of parables. And to impress the disciples of his
time & of all time, Jesus spoke of : sower & seed - good & bad seed
- mustard seed - yeast in flour - treasure in a field - pearl of great prize
-net full of fish. As if to say: go beyond where you are at, let your hidden
potential unfold & grow; keep at it & be drawn into the fullness of
God’s Plan. Yes, it is worth risking everything, in order to secure the hidden
treasure, the pearl of immense value & the incredible catch: all images to
convey God’s unbelievable love Have
you understood?
In chapter 13, Matthew lists 7 parables to describe how great it feels to
be a Christian under God’s loving kingdom; and then to urge us to make a
definite move in order to snap a place in it. God’s loving word is like a seed
which is constantly sown in the hearts of men & women on earth. It’s up to
us to be fertile soil - able to welcome God’s seed and allow it to produce
abundant fruit - able also to survive in the midst of all sorts of wrong seeds
or doctrines. Lucky are we if we welcome even the smallest seed of God’s love.
We will indeed grow into a large plant, where people will find rest &
nourishment at our shade. Lucky are we if we
allow the power of God’s word to penetrate & transform -like leaven in a
batch of dough- every fibre of our being. For this to happen to us, it’s worth
letting go of all we have: yes, it’s smart like selling everything we have,
& then buying a field with a treasure hidden in it, or a pearl of truly
enormous value, or securing an incredible catch of fish. At the end, Jesus asks:
have you understood all this? In modern terms he says: consider where -you &
I- are at in the Church today. As we live day by day, we consider ourselves to
be the Church in the modern world. We say that we are the Church, & as such
we try to live out the same ideals promoted by Jesus when he preached the
Kingdom in the Gospels. Today, we too believe that together, we hold a great
treasure in fragile vessels; that together God has let us in a really wonderful
deal. For it people should be ready to give up everything else. So Jesus’
parables challenge us today, in this way: really, for you & me, what does it
feel to be a Christian and a Catholic? How strong is in us the conviction that
being subjects of God’s Kingdom,
makes us truly free, truly fortunate, truly blessed, truly a slave of no one but
God alone - at peace inside & generous towards those who suffer: feel like
that?... ______________________________________ |
