17th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Reflection: What do you live for?
By SISTER MARY McGLONE
“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.”
Thus wrote Thomas Merton in his novel “My Argument with the Gestapo.” This sounds simple, but many of us might have a hard time answering the question. Or, we might come up with some beautiful, even pious, response that is hardly reflected in our daily activities.
In Dilexi Te, Pope Leo warns that we are ripe to fall prey to “the illusion of happiness derived from a comfortable life [that] pushes many people toward a vision of life centered on the accumulation of wealth and social success at all costs.” What are we living for?
Jesus talks about this in today’s Gospel. He describes two people who find something that is worth everything to them. They sell what they have and invest it all in that thing — the thing Jesus calls the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus says that they do this “out of joy,” the joy we might name as what they were living for.
In June, Pope Leo walked his talk. He addressed migrants, saying, “I want to bow before your dignity. … You are people who have left behind families and homes. You have dreams that no one has the right to despise.”
He went on to say, “Your life does not belong to those who harmed you; your body does not belong to those who took advantage of you; your days do not belong to those who wanted to chain you to fear. Your life belongs to God, who has given you a dignity that cannot be taken from you. We want to walk with you until that truth feels stronger than the pain.”
If we really want to understand today’s Gospel, we might ask migrants to explain it. They are the people who risk all they have and are to find a better life. They believe there is a treasure in an unseen field, a pearl worth any sacrifice. Like many of our ancestors, they have a dream that others might despise, but that spurs them on through trials and beyond all odds. As Leo points out in Dilexi Te, they are the church’s real treasures.
Visiting the Canary Islands, Leo met with migrants and their champions. Tito Villarmea, a rescue captain, told the pope about just two of the 20,000 people he had helped save. He saw a woman and her child, who appeared to be a teenage boy. Once they were on board the rescue vessel, the mother removed the child’s outerwear and put gold earrings in the child’s ears. “It was a girl,” he said.
Villarmea’s witness, Leo said, reveals how “the migrant ceases to be ‘just one more.’ ” When we know that, he said, “Only then can we understand that that little girl could be our daughter, and that those [migrants’] faces could be part of our family.
Many people who wager everything for a better future are models for us. As they suffer hunger, thirst, danger and fear, their stories are hero stories, showing us what it means to have a clear focus in life. Hoping against hope, they believe what Paul says: “All things work for good for those who love God.”
Therefore there are no people, circumstances or situations that cannot be redeemed. They somehow know that God always offers the inspiration and grace for redemption, while it’s up to us to provide the strategies and the muscle.
Paul tells us that, from the beginning of creation, humanity was predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. Predestination is a term that names the innate longing in our heart for God. Being conformed to the Son expresses the call to live our vocation, which is expressed in a thousand different ways and religious traditions.
The glory we are invited to share will be the joy of finding the treasure worth spending our lives on — and it will grow like a mustard seed.
Today’s Gospel challenges us to identify ourselves. What do we live for? What is worth giving our lives for? What keeps us from that? Confronting those questions will reveal us to ourselves, and summon us to live with profound integrity in our words and actions.
No one can live without dedicating their life to something, be it wealth, fame, power, vocation or our most precious relationships. Vocation and relationships bring the experience of the kingdom of heaven. Just keep asking yourself: “What, really, is worth your life?”
First Reading
(1 Kings 3:5, 7-12)
The LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night.
God said, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.”
Solomon answered:
“O LORD, my God, you have made me, your servant, king
to succeed my father David;
but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act.
I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen,
a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted.
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.
So God said to him:
“Because you have asked for this—
not for a long life for yourself,
nor for riches,
nor for the life of your enemies,
but for understanding so that you may know what is right—
I do as you requested.
I give you a heart so wise and understanding
that there has never been anyone like you up to now,
and after you there will come no one to equal you.”
Responsorial Psalm
(Psalms 119:57, 72, 76-77, 127-128, 129-130)
R. Lord, I love your commands.
I have said, O LORD, that my part
is to keep your words.
The law of your mouth is to me more precious
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
R. Lord, I love your commands.
Let your kindness comfort me
according to your promise to your servants.
Let your compassion come to me that I may live,
for your law is my delight.
R. Lord, I love your commands.
For I love your command
more than gold, however fine.
For in all your precepts I go forward;
every false way I hate.
R. Lord, I love your commands.
Wonderful are your decrees;
therefore I observe them.
The revelation of your words sheds light,
giving understanding to the simple.
R. Lord, I love your commands.
Second Reading
(Romans 8:28-30)
Brothers and sisters:
We know that all things work for good for those who love God,
who are called according to his purpose.
For those he foreknew he also predestined
to be conformed to the image of his Son,
so that he might be the firstborn
among many brothers and sisters.
And those he predestined he also called;
and those he called he also justified;
and those he justified he also glorified.
Gospel
(Matthew 13:44-52)
Jesus said to his disciples:
“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.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
which collects fish of every kind.
When it is full they haul it ashore
and sit down to put what is good into buckets.
What is bad they throw away.
Thus it will be at the end of the age.
The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous
and throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
“Do you understand all these things?”
They answered, “Yes.”
And he replied,
“Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven
is like the head of a household
who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.”