Sunday, July 26, 2026    17th Sun in Ord Time

 Matthew 13:44-46

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."

Hidden Treasures and Priceless Pearls  Mt 13  44-46  

This is the season.   After those crowds of sunbathers and swimmers down the shore have flocked all day to the beaches of New Jersey, in the evening twilight one can see a lone individual here and there pacing up and down swinging a metal detector back and forth across the tired sand.  He is searching for a buried treasure or, so to speak, a pearl of great price.    Occasionally he stops, he stoops, he digs through the sand to find the metal that set off a signal.    Jesus's parable vividly describes this person coming upon a treasure hidden in the ground.  

 

First some general words about Jesus’s teaching and then some reflections on the two simple parables in today’s gospel.

Jesus attempts to teach us the truth of the kingdom of God through a series of miracles and stories.   For some who witness his miracles, the miracles are a source of faith in God’s hand powerfully present in Jesus’s words and works.   Even if we have trouble believing the miracles, say, of healing , we should remember that Jesus undertakes them, yes, with love for those healed but to illustrate his  preaching and teaching.   They are not simply magic unconnected to Jesus message and his love for all people.

As for the stories that Jesus loves to tell in his preaching, they include the simple parables that we read today about the kingdom of God as well as more complicated stories that might have two or three scenes such as the parable of the prodigal son, his father and his brother.     These parables shed light on some characteristic of God’s care of us.   So in the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus is illustrating for the pharisaical among us that his Father in heaven not only forgives the repentant sinner but strives to welcome and embrace the sinner.    Both the full story parable of the prodigal and the two very simple comparison parables in today’s reading underline for those listening the characteristics of God where God might be experienced as elusive or hidden.

Today we hear that the kingdom of God is like a treasure buried in a field or a pearl of great price…   Jesus paints pictures of astonished  seekers who have suddenly found some great value within their reach.

"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 they have and buys that field. 

Some individual happens to dig up a treasure in what can be thought of as a farm field.   Then he reburies it so that he can convince the owner of the field into selling the field cheaply.    Jesus often spices up his parables with actors of unsavory behavior not to approve of this behavior but to fully engage listeners with the emotions of surprise, of desire and of anxiety.    These are the emotions that Jesus brings out in his New Testament listeners.   His listeners are surprised that he, someone coming from a small country town and not Jerusalem, is announcing God’s Kingdom; he leads these listeners to desire to be part of this saving kingdom; these listeners are anxious to find a way into membership

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."

The merchant who finds the pearl of great price might need to keep to himself the value of the pearl in order to prevent others from bidding up the price but, unlike the hidden treasure, in this situation the seller knows or should know something about its value, too.   Here again the desire and the anxiety of a possible loss of the pearl drives the merchant into an intense strategy so that he can become its owner.

The intense desire to give up all that one has in order to have the means to purchase the field or the pearl highlights our longing for the values found in the kingdom of God, divine values that we may have been neglecting in our general seeking but values that surprise us: human dignity, human life supported by the sharing of God’s gifts, compassion for ourselves and others in times of suffering.  Dignity, shared gifts, compassion.   Such characteristics of life are priceless.   

These gifts, of course, are by their nature gifts to be shared with others.  Though, I did read one commentator that considers these parables as illustrating God’s union with the heart of the individual as more the key to understanding them.   And here Jesus does not discuss any sharing of these treasures with the community.

But surely we express our gratitude for human dignity when genuine relationships are shared with others, when our practical needs are shared with one another and when we support each other in times of trouble.   All these are the signs of some otherwise hidden treasure.   Most of us would miss these signs dearly if they were absent even for a day. 

Fortunately in this time of war, and government measures of arrest and deportation of immigrants, and gaping disregard for truth, there are treasures everywhere but we need to look in the right place.  

For example, I was invited two weeks ago to accompany two young immigrants from Colombia, a married couple, as they waited for their appointments on the sidewalk outside the Philadelphia ICE office.  Each has applied for Asylum because their lives were threatened in their former home.    Their work with young people in their native city interfered with the recruiting of gang members.   Thus their need to flee to the United States.  Fortunately after the ICE office hearings each one returned to the sidewalk free for another year.  May this coming year provide them a road to citizenship.   Each day now their restaurant employers welcome them but surely  someday their new community can put their talents to full use.   Why do we make them hide their gifts?

 

Or visit the St. Raphaela’s retreat house in Haverford and meet a young man who earlier completed the Ignatian retreat in everyday life while he dedicaated much of his time to landscaping the retreat house property.    Now happily married with a master’s degree in human development, he will be creating advocates for God’s creation by leading ecology retreats on the same grounds he landscapes.

 

Or be present two months ago at this year’s ceremony celebrating about forty graduates of St. Joseph’s University whose first year out of college will be a volunteer year in one of many different service programs, all involving service of community needs and most involving community living and spiritual enrichment.

 

And, of course, I note the twenty men in the United States who will be pronouncing their first vows as Jesuits this August.

 

You all have men and women like this in your memories.  Wave your metal detector over them who are among our treasures, our pearls of great price.   Hear a loud bleep.   God chooses them to tell us about the kingdom.

 

 

 

LOUIS PAUZANO   JULY 7, 2026

Readings:   Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

                   Romans 14: 7=9, 10-12

                   John 14: 1-6

 

We pray now for consolations for Lou’s wonderful family, RoseAnne, Lauren. Lou, Jr. and Christopher and the grandchildren.   The family took a look at the scripture readings for funerals suggested by the Church and they have chosen two illuminating readings for dad’s funeral liturgy and I have added the gospel.   In the light of these readings we all mourn with them and put our arms around them in sharing their sorrow.  

First the words of Ecclesiastes.   The ancient wisdom reading from Ecclesiastes proclaims that God makes every moment beautiful within God’s own time. 

There is an appointed time for everything,

and a time for every affair under the heavens.

A time to give birth, and a time to die;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

 

Yesterday I opened my copy of the St. Joseph’s Prep yearbook of 67 years ago and there is a picture of Lou’s smiling open face.   And I notice that his parents are listed as patrons of that Yearbook.  So there was a time for Lou to be a son of his parents.  And we give thanks for that.    A time for him to further his education at St. Joseph’s University with both a bachelor’s and a Master’s degrees preparing him for service in the banking community of Philadelphia retiring finally as a Vice President.   There were times for him to constantly support both alma maters even with gifts sent in the last years of his life.  He never forgot his education.  And especially at the Prep he led the alumni association for some years.   His phone calls and signature reminders helped support scholarships at the Prep now lasting into the future.   And he always kept his ’59 classmates at the center of these relationships.

 

But more personally: a time to marry, a time to give of himself as husband to RoseAnne, a time of fatherhood and grandfatherhood.   A time to laugh and to dance.  All the while a time as banker and planner to support and encourage others, even to support the successful, shall we say family enterprise, important to so many families, First Impressions Daycare.   Later Lou had a time to seek life-saving medical care.   A time to depend on the love of Roseanne and that of the three stars in their lives, his children who helped him keep up with activities of all kinds.  So it was a time to engage with his Prep classmates especially at class reunions. 

 

And for many decades it was always a time to welcome family and friends to that sanctuary of welcome on Cleveland St.   I myself was a half-dozen times welcome there in recent years.   Lou, not so mobile, but always with time to engage and encourage and RoseAnne always feeding me as she did anyone who came into their sacred place.

 

But now, now, a time of sorrow for Lou’s family and all of us here.    But also now: all in God’s time we can put the pieces of Lou’s life together into a beautiful mosaic of commitment and love.

 

The Letter to Romans which we also read this morning affirms the faith that sustained Lou and Roseanne and their family for all these years.

 

“For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”

Paul in Romans states this belief: living and dying we belong to Jesus Christ.   This might not be so easy to see in the lives of some people.   But for Lou it is self-evident.  Lou’s life is proof of a personal source of Creation who orients our hearts and souls to love and to service.   And in that Spirit Lou lives now with Jesus the Lord of the risen life.   Lou and his family in both life and death belong to the Lord.

Let me take one moment to remember Lou’s Prep class of 1959.    In the last four or five years at least twenty of Lou’s Prep classmates have taken up residence with the risen Lord and I see them welcoming Lou and preparing a place for all of us.   This welcoming event is for us an image of joy.

And in that spirt some brief words about the gospel: the words from the gospel of John remind me of how Lou lived his own life in the same way that Jesus lived his life.   Jesus taught us about the love of God whom he called Father.   And Lou, as well, in his lived experience taught us about the love of God.

In this gospel Jesus is saying goodbye to the men and women who had been following him; he tells them that in the kingdom of God there are many dwelling places and, when he goes there, he will prepare a place for them.   I think that Lou is now at work with Jesus doing just that.  That is, he is doing what he did so ably while among us.  He now is preparing places for us, heavenly places like those that cared here for his children and so many other children, heavenly places for the young to learn what they might have missed on earth, heavenly places to gather families just like the sacred place on Cleveland Street and places, too, for the different communities of heaven.   For Lou heaven is a joyful time for him with Jesus to prepare our future homes.  I see him there and I thank God for sending him among us here.