Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
This is Sundays with Bishop Ken.
Thanks for sharing some quiet time with the Lord today. We welcome guest reader Brenda Piazza. Brenda is a parishioner of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Mendon, New York, where she joyfully serves in a variety of ministries.
Brenda also shares her gifts with us and each liturgical season, narrating our little book's reflections.
And now, here is today's Gospel and Homily.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: A reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew 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.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Those two parables of Jesus catch the imagination.
We can picture a poor farm laborer working in the field, working with a hoe or something, and by accident, just beneath the surface, he hits something hard, uncovers it, and it's a wooden box with a great treasure in it.
The other parable involves not a poor man, but a well to do merchant who travels to faraway places.
One day he sees a pile of average pearls and suddenly among them is a pearl that looks like the rest.
But his practiced eye can see it is a magnificent pearl worth a fortune.
Jesus didn't tell these fascinating stories just to entertain his audience.
What is Jesus teaching us?
Remember, in both cases the valuable discovery was right there in front of everyone else.
The treasure was just beneath the surface of a field that people passed by or walked through all the time.
The pearl was an open sight on a table with all the other pearls.
It's just that nobody noticed.
Here's what I want you to do.
Take just a few seconds now and look ahead to the things coming up in your life this week.
It doesn't have to be something special.
Just the regular stuff of the week.
Take 20 seconds to think about it.
Now with the panorama of the week in your mind right now, just beneath the surface of everything in it is a great treasure.
It is God.
Imagine God mixed in it with all of that.
God is in all this weak stuff, present active part of it with you, helping you, asking you simply to do your best to bring some goodness to it.
What a treasure to have God there.
Especially in things that aren't entirely pleasant or are boring.
What a treasure to have God there.
Now I have to tell you something.
During that pause, when we all thought about the coming week, I thought about how next week the Saginaw Priests play in our annual three day golf tournament with the Detroit Priests.
We've been doing this for years and the number of tournaments won by each team is about even.
Which means we have to take this year's match very seriously.
So this week I'm going to have to think about God on that golf course. And I can tell you when it's going to be difficult.
When I'm in a sand trap, imagine I'm going to have to think about God being with me in a sand trap of all places.
But that's the point.
God is with us in everything.
And it's especially difficult to notice God's presence in the regular routine parts of our lives or in the not so good parts of our lives.
But God is there.
Even though God's presence can go unnoticed.
Just like no one noticed the treasure in the field or the magnificent pearl in the pile of pearls.
We know God is everywhere, but that can be just an abstract thought.
It's different when you picture God in the day to day things of your life.
You see, it's not God looking down on us from a distance.
It's God in the mix of it all.
Remember, we're not pretending God is there.
We're realizing and experiencing the up close presence of God with us.
And God isn't there as a spectator. God is part of it.
This is God's world.
We are God's daughters and sons.
God is there in the thick of it to help.
It makes a difference.
I know I tried it these past couple of days when I was thinking about this homily and came upon this insight.
I started trying it. I can tell you firsthand it makes a difference.
Did you notice in both those parables? The result was joy?
The treasure of God's presence is always uplifting.
It brings a certain peace, a certain sense of purpose, a pleasant feeling I close with a thought that I hope will help you notice the presence of God all week long.
One of the small parts of the Mass, but an important one, is what we do at the very end.
As a matter of fact, it's how the Mass got its name.
When the Mass was said in Latin, the priest said ITE missa est, which literally means go. It is the sending, but was often translated go. The Mass is ended.
The Latin word missa is the word for sending.
In aeronautics we have the English word missal, which means something sent into the air.
That's where the word Mass came from.
At the end of Mass, we don't just get up and leave. We are blessed and sent.
In other words, we come here for an hour a week so we can live our faith. During the other 167 hours of the week, we are blessed and sent. And I pray that this ritual at the end of every Mass will help us carry the treasure of God's presence into the week.
Remember what St. Paul said in our second reading all things work together for good for those who love God.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us today.
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Sam.
