Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The kingdom of God is like the true treasure one is searching for. He will not stop until the treasure is found. The true treasure is where the hear t is most at peace. There lies in the true treasure what God wants for his people. When the treasure or pearl of great price is found, the finder should value it with his life and make the treasure the reason for his existence. He is to protect and preserve the treasure because it is what will give direction to his life. It is a gift to him from God. And so, there should be no half measures in taking care of the gift given by God. And God in his wisdom will help the one looking for the true treasure to find it because it is what will make his life charged with purpose and meaning, and that is what God wants for us. The life of the Christian is a search for the true treasure so that hopefully when he finds it, he may have peace and serenity and joy in the heart. But more often than not, we find out it is not an easy search. There are so many treasures in the world vying for our attention, each offering us all sorts of promises of satisfaction and happiness Some of these supposed to be treasures make us even more restless especially when we jealously cling to them. They do not give us peace, yet we cannot seem to let go of them. And because they are not the true treasures for us, we have invested wrongly on them and much of our time and energy are wasted pursuing these things which do not really help us grow as persons. Some people pursue worldly honor and glory. Others pursue wealth obsessively. Still others pursue greatness and power. They spend a lot of time and energy acquiring these things and eventually get stuck on them. We know that they are not true treasures because those who possess them are not genuinely happy and free because they live in constant pressure and suspicion and mistrust in other people. They even dehumanize other people in the process. The Gospel therefore reminds us to seek the true treasure and to really put our hearts on where our true treasure lies. The true treasure is willed by God and so it is what makes us fully human. It is said that the deepest desire of the human heart is God's will. God's will and man's deepest desire converge and come together in the human heart. After all, what guides our deepest desire is the Spirit of God who teaches us to pray. And the true prayer of the heart is the expression of God's will. God's will is what brings us to the true treasure in life. It is God's will, responded to by the best choices and honest decisions we make, that gathers for us true treasures.