Homily – 17th Sunday – Year – Fr Jeremiah Browne (National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies #southafrica #Swaziland #eswatini #Botswana)
I would like to begin with a simple question today. What would you be willing to give up for your spouse or for your child if that decision came knocking at your door?
Would you give up a Saturday morning to help them through a difficult time? Would you sacrifice a night’s sleep to care for them when they are ill? Would you cancel your own plans or postpone a holiday so that they could have an opportunity you never had? Would you sit beside them in hospital for days, putting your own comfort aside? I’m sure that most of us would not hesitate in offering this help.
But what if the cost became greater? Would you spend your retirement savings or pension fund to pay for life-saving treatment? Would you sell your home if it meant keeping your family together? Would you donate one of your kidneys if it could save the life of your spouse or your child?
I suspect that, if it came to it, many parents would give only one answer. They would willingly lay down their own life so that their child could live.
That instinctive response tells us something profound. When we truly love someone, we do not first calculate the cost. We think about the value of the person. Love changes the way we measure sacrifice.
Jesus speaks directly to that truth in today’s Gospel (Matthew 13:44-52), through three short parables. A man discovers a hidden treasure in a field. A merchant finds a pearl of extraordinary value. A fisherman gathers every kind of fish in his net. At first glance, the first two parables appear to be about what people are willing to give up. In reality, they are about what they have discovered.
Neither the man nor the merchant walks away feeling deprived. They do not reluctantly part with their possessions. They joyfully sell everything because they have found something infinitely more valuable.
Their sacrifice is not driven by duty but by love. Once they recognise the treasure before them, everything else falls into its proper place.
That is how faith grows. Christianity is not first about keeping rules or fulfilling obligations. It begins with an encounter. It begins when we discover that God is not an idea but a living presence who knows us, loves us and calls us into relationship with him. Once we discover that treasure, our priorities begin to change naturally – and we begin to live differently.
The challenge, of course, is that life has a way of distracting us. We all experience disappointment, illness, grief, financial pressures, broken relationships or uncertainty about the future. During those moments it is easy to lose sight of the treasure.
Sometimes our problems become so overwhelming that they fill our entire horizon. We become so preoccupied with what is wrong that we fail to notice what God is quietly doing in our lives.
Christ has not abandoned us. God is still present, often hidden beneath the surface of our struggles, quietly inviting us to trust, to hope and to keep searching. Faith is not pretending that life is easy; it is learning to recognise God’s faithful presence even when life is at its hardest.
God’s presence is often found precisely where we least expect it: in the spouse who chooses to forgive one more time; in the parent who quietly puts the needs of their children first; in the friend who remains faithful; in the stranger who offers unexpected kindness; in the courage to begin again after failure; and in the quiet assurance that God has never abandoned us, even when we struggle to feel his presence. Every one of those moments is a glimpse of the treasure of God’s Kingdom already at work among us.
History is full of people who spent years searching for happiness in all the wrong places before discovering the true treasure. Perhaps no one expressed that journey more honestly than Saint Augustine. After years of chasing pleasure, ambition and success, he finally realised that the deepest longing of the human heart could never be satisfied by anything less than God.
Looking back over his life, he prayed those beautiful words: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
The final parable reminds us that discovering the Kingdom is never simply a private experience. One day, every life will be gathered before God, just as every fish is gathered into the net. What will matter then will not be how successful we appeared or how much we accumulated, but whether we allowed the treasure we discovered to shape the way we lived, the people we became and the love we shared.
Perhaps that is the invitation Jesus places before each of us today – not to spend our lives chasing what can never truly satisfy, but to keep searching for the one treasure that alone can fill the restless human heart.
Every one of us is building our life around something. Every one of us has a treasure that shapes our decisions, influences our priorities and directs our hearts. The only question is whether that treasure will last. Jesus invites us today to build our lives on the one treasure that can never be taken from us: our life in Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven already growing within us.
At the beginning of this homily, we asked what we would be willing to give up for someone we love. Jesus answers that question today. When we have truly discovered the treasure of his Kingdom, sacrifice is no longer simply something we endure; it becomes something we embrace with joy. So ask yourself today: What is the treasure that shapes my life? Because only one treasure is great enough to give meaning to every sacrifice we make, and that treasure is Christ alone.
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Please consider praying a decade of the rosary on a daily basis for the evangelising Mission of the Church and the Pope’s intentions.
The the pope’s prayer intention for the month of July is for respect for human life.
Let us pray for the respect and protection of human life in all its stages, recognizing it as a gift from God.
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Blessed Pauline Jaricot, Pray for us. 🙏🏼🙏🏼
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