We have all heard that kind of advice at some time or another. And most likely, we have also given that advice to someone else, perhaps to a young person about to make a foolish decision. When I was pastor of the university parish in Fayetteville, I spent a fair amount of my time talking with young people, counseling them, and especially encouraging them to be measured and sensible in their decisions. A lot of harm can be avoided if you approach the things of life carefully and deliberately.
There are times, however, when being bold and decisive is in fact the sensible thing to do. The parables of Jesus that we just heard in the Gospel are a good example. For someone to sell all that they have in order to buy a field would be a rash and foolish thing to do – unless one knows that a great treasure is buried within it. For a merchant to sell all that he has in order to buy a single pearl would be crazy – unless he knows that pearl is worth more than anything else. Jesus’s point in these parables is that when we find the pearl of great price, the buried treasure, the thing in life that is *most* important, then we must act boldly and decisively to obtain it, even if it appears to others as if we are acting foolishly.
The Pearl of Great Price (c. 2006) by Daniel Bonnell (bonnellart.com)
But what is that pearl, that treasure? Clearly, it’s not something that is valuable in worldly terms, according to earthly ways of thinking, since it relates to the kingdom of heaven. We can throw out then the different goals and objectives that so often dominate our decision-making: material wealth and security; success in our occupation or career; the esteem of friends and loved ones; a life well-lived, free from sorrow and suffering, full of health and blessing. These are attractive things, and maybe even good to a certain degree, but they are things that everyone clearly wants. But, as Jesus says, the treasure of the kingdom of God, the pearl of great price, is *not* something that everyone appreciates, or understands, or even recognizes is there at all.
No, there must be something else – something that, when we find it and pursue it, will make perfect sense to us, but may well seem foolish to others. What is that? God’s will; that is, the particular will that God has for us as individuals – the purpose for which he has created each of us. Ultimately, he desires that we spend eternity with him, in his eternal kingdom; that is the reason why we exist, that is the reason why there is creation at all. But he has also created us individually for a particular purpose, a design unique to us by which we can glorify him and attain the life of heaven. If we ignore that purpose, or fail to identify at all, then we risk not attaining salvation and eternal life altogether.
To seek God’s will, we first must have an active relationship with him: in prayer and in the sacraments. Second, we find his purpose in the choices we make. Often these choices may seem very mundane: how we spend our time, with whom we associate, how we carry out our daily responsibilities and tasks. But in each of them, we should ask ourselves: “Am I pursuing the kingdom of God, or something lesser? Am I searching for the pearl of great price, or have I settled for something else?”
Sometimes, our lives present us with pivotal moments in pursuing the will of God – a fork in the road, so to speak, which makes all the difference for our future. Often we see this in the lives of the saints. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, for example, whose feast is this coming Friday, was once a soldier, with dreams of living a life of great military success and worldly glory; but after being injured, he underwent a period of discernment in which he heard the voice of God calling him to leave all of that and enter religious life, from which he eventually founded the Society of Jesus. Blessed Stanley Rother, a more recent figure from our tradition whose feast we also celebrate this week, was a priest and missionary in Guatemala in the early ‘80s. When his ministry to the people ran afoul of the authoritarian regime, he learned that his name had been added to the army’s death list and he had to flee the country. But after spending a few months back in his home state of Oklahoma, he decided in the end to return to Guatemala. He said that the shepherd does not run from the flock in the face of danger, and it was for that belief that he was assassinated and eventually declared a martyr for the faith.
Fr. Stanley Rother in 1981, a few months before he returned to Guatemala, where he was martyred.
The choice of St. Ignatius and the decision of Fr. Rother aren’t sensible according to a worldly way of thinking. Indeed, they may even seem foolish. But they *were* precisely what God desired for them – it was their path to holiness, their path to heaven. You and I have a responsibility to take up that same search for God’s will, and to educate and form our young people to do the same. You who are parents or grandparents, godparents or aunts and uncles, teachers and educators, catechists, coaches, and the like – you have an influence on what the youth of today will value. The world will teach them to seek those attractive but mundane, earthly things: prosperity, achievement, health and good fortune, etc. Or you can teach them there is a greater search to be undertaken, a greater treasure to be pursued: God’s will, unique to their life, their own pearl of great price to be discovered. Please don't discount the critical role you have in shaping the values, and molding the hearts, of the young people in your life!
Friends, what we all need, in the end, is what Solomon asks for in the first reading: wisdom – that is, the capacity to see our lives as God sees them and to understand our decisions as he does. Our lives may not feature moments of decision as dramatic as St. Ignatius and Bl. Stanley; but in their own way, our own choices will be no less important. When we find God’s unique purpose that we are called to fulfill – the treasure unknown to others, the pearl of great price – we must be bold and decisive in pursuing it with everything we have even if, according to the ways of the world, our choices may seem foolish.
May this Eucharist, our greatest spiritual treasure, nourish and strengthen our faith that we too may search and discover the pearl of great price, the eternal life of God’s kingdom.
1 comment:
Great words of wisdom!!! Heard great words from Father Wesley last evening as well in Slovak...
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