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OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/6/2016
30/07/2017 – 17th Sunday of O. T. – Year A

30/07/2017 – 17th Sunday of O. T. – Year A

Reading 1 First Kings 3,5.7-12  Psalm 118/119  Reading 2 Romans 8,28-30  Gospel Matthew 13,44-52


God is very pleased about Salomon’s prayer. He was very young when he became king in his father David’s place. Because of his young age he was aware that he was not able to carry out the assigned responsibility of God’s people. So he turns to God humbly praying, admitting and confessing his inadequacy. “I am a very young man, unskilled in leadership. So give your servant a heart to understand how to govern your people, how to discern between good and evil”. This is really a becoming disposition for a king, for somebody who has the responsibility for other people. He cannot feel superior to others, as a matter of fact he is in the position of a servant. Humility is the characteristic of whom loves the Lord and the attitude that pleases Him: he likes the little ones and simple people, indeed. Therefore, in addition to giving to Salomon the gifts of wisdom and judgment, God gives him what he did not ask for as well, that is to say a long life and wealth.

Saint Paul too writes to the Romans that whoever really loves God does not have to be afraid of anything, because he “turns everything to their good”. Every incident, every event, every happening turns out to be an occasion to grow and develop patience, readiness, charity, and ultimately, sanctity. This is what happened during the life of the Son of God, Jesus: He never complained about what was happening to Him, on the contrary He used to live every moment like it was a sign given by His Father in order to show Him His will. Jesus was really attentive in order to discover God’s will, because He loved Him, and He loved Him without doubting Him. This is why everything he sees and hears, Jesus would take as a sign useful to his purpose of announcing and deepening the knowledge of the Kingdom to come, of which he was the designated king. The fishermen’s work, whoever is looking for a precious pearl, and whoever finds an unexpected treasure, all these become pieces of news useful to Him in order to disclose the beauty, the value and the ways of the kingdom already announced by John the Baptiste before Him.

Who does experience this kingdom? The answer is in the stories of the man who finds the treasure and the man who searches for the pearl. The one who finds the treasure in the field, finds something that is unknown to the others. That field could have a very low value, or a very great value. He gives up all his possessions, he sells them in order to be able to afford that field, because then he will own that treasure that is still hidden from everybody else. In case that field did not have any value according to the estimators, he would not mind to be mocked. In case it was a highly priced field, he would not care to give up everything he has. To be part of the Kingdom of Heaven is such a great joy, that you can and you must risk both things: derision and poverty. To obey the king of that realm is the only treasure from which a man can derive satisfaction, accomplishment, joy and life. Jesus can be found by chance, unexpectedly, either because somebody told you about Him, or because you met somebody who let you see His face or listen to His Word.

Somebody else, instead, carefully and with commitment is seeking their own happiness and fullness of life, and only meeting Jesus they can find those. To be with Him and to obey His voice they give up all the goodness and the beauty that were filling their heart until then. Nothing can stay in lieu of the joy that Jesus gives, not even the fulfillment of old dreams or the achievement of long-longed for goals. Jesus is God’s gift indeed, the fullness that our heart has never experienced before. The martyrs’ testimony along the ages, even in our times, is the real proof of it.

Jesus adds a third parable in order to better describe His kingdom. This is a kingdom that gathers everybody, both good ones and evil ones, like the fishermen’s net that fishes all kinds of fish. Then comes the moment in which there will be the sorting. Like the fishermen select the fish, in order to keep the edible ones, so “this is how it will be at the end of time”. “The angels will appear and separate the wicked from the upright”: not even the apostle will attend this task, only God’s angels. The Kingdom of Heaven is here on earth, and it is a realm in which whoever has found or searched for Jesus lives side by side with whom does not search for Him and does not love Him, even maybe with whom rejects Him or disowns Him. Living in Jesus’ kingdom means being patient and enduring, being kind and charitable. In a word, Jesus is not promising us an easy life without problems. Being with Him, we have to be ready to face any kind of situation. We will have to show the same love that God shows to us all: he puts up with us and waits for us, he sees our inadequacy wherever he is spreading his richness. This is why we keep repeating Salomon’s prayer like it was our own prayer: “I am a very young man, unskilled in leadership. So give your servant a heart … to discern between good and evil”.