July 24, 2011
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong. For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?" The LORD was pleased that Solomon made this request. I Kings 3
"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. Matthew 13:44-46
Piety
Solomon pleased God when he asked for wisdom. Wisdom is a discerning heart. Piety is our share in the wisdom of God. Piety is the wisdom of Christ in us. The grace of discernment is being able to know what God is asking of us in the now of our lives. Christ is the finest and most human expression of the wisdom of God. Christ lived up to his destiny even when it brought him to his death on the cross. The love of God has its most challenging expression in the dying of Christ. Love of God conforms us to Christ’s way of doing things. The inscrutable wisdom of God is revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ. Justice and Peace meet in the cross of Christ. God so loved the world that he gave us his only son that we might know how loved we are in his dying for us. We approach the cross of Christ as the wisdom of God. We know how much we love God in our willingness to carry the crosses of our lives in his name. The perfect response to God’s love for us is our willingness to be totally identified with Christ.
Study
We study how we are called in according to the purpose of God. Our study of Christ reveals in the ways we are like Christ what the justification of Christ is all about. We discover by our study attractions in our heart to Christ’s ways of doing things and we learn to imitate Christ in how we carry the crosses of our lives. Study brings out how we are images of Christ in our lives. It gives us insight as to how we can be better images as we are called by Christ to be his hands and feet in our world. Our claim to fame in heaven will be based on how well we carried the cross of Christ in our own lives. The difficulties of our lives are the crosses that are fitted to our strength and the call of God’s justification in our lives. Christ reveals to little ones the mysteries of the kingdom. We observe the decrees that are the revelation of how to love. Christ says it so simply at the last supper. If you love me you will keep the Commandments.
Action
It is no easy task to put into practice what we learn about Christ. Yet we realize we are created to the image and likeness of God in Christ and our tasks in life are to live his love and to be his presence by what we say and do. Our search for the glory of Christ is a lot like the treasure buried in a field. We buy the whole field of the work of the Lord when we realize that Christ is our happiness and our joy. The tasks of each day are to do what we do just as Christ would do it. We pray that he inspire us and even carry out our tasks for us. We try to give him carte blanche in our lives and ask him to be with us from the start to the finish of each day. We do the Examen of the Consciousness of his presence in our lives so that we may grow in the happiness of knowing the resurrection is at work in our lives. Happiness and Peace belong to the ways we work at making Christ a real part of our lives. Our task pushes us to the point where we can say we no longer live, but Christ lives in us. Christ is our treasure. We live his love that we may be entirely his. Our best response to God’s love for us is our living of our lives in Christ.
