Scripture:
Jeremiah 15:10, 16-21
Matthew 13:11-46
Reflection:
Today’s gospel is about priorities. What is most important to us? What is the "pearl of great price" in our lives?
Love songs often express the priority of one’s beloved. The lyrics speak of climbing the highest mountain, swimming the deepest ocean, and letting nothing get in the way. From the musical group Bread, we have a song titled Everything I own. It contains these words:
I would give everything I own,
Give up my life, my heart, my home,
I would give everything I own,
Just to have you back again.
Some of you may recall a professional football player of the 1960’s named Gale Sayers. He ranks among the greatest running backs of all time. Around his neck he wore a gold medal about the size of a half-dollar. On it were inscribed three words: "I am third". These three words became the title of his best-selling autobiography. If you were to ask him what those words meant, he would tell you, "The Lord is first, my friends are second, and I am third."
In his autobiography Gale Sayers wrote, "I try to live by the saying on my medal. I don’t always succeed, but having the saying around my neck keeps me from straying from it too far."
The question is not, "What do we possess?" The right question is, "What possesses us? What grips us? What motivates us? What is in the center of our hearts?"
Jesus challenges us to choose him first and commit ourselves totally to him. The goal is to be able to say with St. Paul, "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38-39)
Fr. Alan Phillip, C.P. is a member of the Passionist Community at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California. http://www.alanphillipcp.com/