The Face of Mercy / Daniel Conway

Jesus, the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price

During his address to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square before the Angelus on July 30, the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Pope Francis said: 

“The disciple of Christ is not one who is deprived of something essential; He is one who has found much more: he has found the fullness of joy that only the Lord can give. It is the evangelical joy of healed people; of forgiven sinners; of the thief to whom is opened the door of paradise.”

Speaking about that day’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, which tells the parables of the “hidden treasure” and the “pearl of great price,” Pope Francis emphasized that “the attitude of searching is the essential condition for finding.”

The treasure is the kingdom of God, found through the person of Jesus Christ, the pope said. And to obtain it, our hearts must burn with the desire to seek it and find it out.

“He is the hidden treasure, he is the pearl of great value. He is the fundamental discovery, which can make a decisive turning point in our lives, filling it with meaning.”

Too many of us spend our whole lives searching in the wrong places, for things that will never satisfy our deepest longing.

The parables that Jesus tells in St. Matthew’s Gospel speak to the urgency of seeking, and ultimately finding, “hidden treasure” and “the pearl of great price.” Whether we find them by accident or as the result of a long and difficult process of seeking, our reaction should be immediate and all-encompassing.

We must sell everything we have, without counting the cost to ourselves, and embrace the new-found treasure, the pearl of great price, as the secret to all life’s mysteries.

As Pope Francis has written in his encyclical “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home,” “Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise” (#12). This is a great discovery that the missionary disciple makes when he or she encounters the person of Jesus Christ and gives up everything to follow him and proclaim his Good News.

The parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price “highlight two characteristics concerning the possession of the kingdom of God,” Pope Francis said, “searching and sacrifice.”

It is true, the pope says, “the Kingdom of God is offered to all—it is a gift, a favor, a grace—but it is not made available on a silver plate, it requires dynamism: it is to seek, to walk, to do.”

Consistent with his intolerance for “lazy Christians” or those of us who are content to remain indoors in the comfort and security of our homes, Pope Francis says that the Gospel demands action, not mere lip service. Giving up everything—including our very lives—for the sake of the Gospel is the most dramatic form of action that a missionary disciple can take in response to the Lord’s invitation, “Come, follow me” (Mt 4:19).

“Evaluating the invaluable treasure leads to a decision that also involves sacrifice, detachment and renunciation,” the pope says.

A disciple’s choice to sacrifice everything for Christ is not a matter of “despising” the things of this world, but of putting things in their proper order, placing Jesus first before everything else.

And doing so leads to the joy of the Gospel, which fills the hearts and lives of those who have found Jesus. “Those who are saved by him are freed from sin, sadness, inner void, and isolation,” the pope said. “With Jesus Christ, the joy is always born and reborn.”

Everyone of us seeks the “consoling presence of Jesus in our lives.” And this presence, Pope Francis said, is one that transforms our hearts, opening us up to the needs of our brothers and sisters, in particular those that are weaker or more vulnerable than we are, especially the poor, migrants and refugees, the unborn, elderly and infirm on the margins of society.

“Let us pray, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” the pope concluded, “for each of us to witness, with daily words and gestures, the joy of having found the treasure of the Kingdom of God, that is, the love the Father has given us through Jesus.”
 

(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †