Finding hidden treasures

Good News Reflection
Wednesday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time
July 28, 2010

Today's Readings:
Jer 15:10, 16-21
Ps 59:2-4,10-11,17-18
Matt 13:44-46
http://www.usccb.org/nab/072810.shtml
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/10_07_28.mp3

Finding hidden treasures

Like the author of today's first reading, we believe that God's Word brings us joy, but when we're in the middle of problems that were caused by our sinfulness and we don't know how to undo the damage, or when shame cripples us, we feel unhappily crushed by the truth. We feel stricken down by the weight of the burden.

Furthermore, if we wrestle with the truth, the burden weighs even more heavily, and the problems themselves crush us. We cry, "Why is my pain continuous, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?"

God answers: "If you repent, I will restore you .... If you bring forth only what is precious and not the vile...." We lose our joy because God's instructions are contrary to our self-centered, worldly (and therefore vile) ideas of what is right and good for us. We turn away from him and then wonder why we feel alone. When someone hurts us, we justify our anger and in our lack of forgiveness we complain that God is not helping us.

The pearl in today's Gospel readingcan be any truth. Although it's always precious, if we don't see the pearl's value (because we prefer our sinful ways), we toss it aside as worthless. To discover the beauty of any truth that we dislike, we need to humbly open ourselves to a new perspective.

I learned this from my son when he was four. David thought he'd found the "X" that marks the jackpot of all treasure caches when we came upon a clearance table in the local toy store. I told David he could buy anything priced under $2. With as much careful decision-making as a tot could muster, he began rummaging and examining. He chose a scratched-up, much-abused, hand-size pinball game. It wasn't worth the asking price of 25 cents.

I suggested other toys that were in better condition. He looked at me with exasperation. Why couldn't I see that this pinball game was the only real treasure on the table?

It turned out to be a great purchase. David took it everywhere – to bed, to the dinner table, to the bathroom. He also carried a baby rattle he'd recently found in some forgotten cranny of the house. That rattle had bored him when he was young enough to enjoy it. Now when it was outdated and useless, it became one of his treasures.

To find the treasures that will bring us great joy, we have to ignore the preferences of our sinful flesh-nature and dare to trust God in his Word. We have to look for precious pearls in the redemption that Jesus brings to our sins. Great wisdom can be gained by asking: "Why am I bothered by this sin? What does it say about my desire for growth?" What a beautiful hidden treasure!

For more humorous stories like this, see my Cross Connections:
http://wordbytes.org/CrossConnect/index.html

© 2010 by Terry A. Modica
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