In Jeremiah 15 today, God speaks of the need for repentance. “Thus the Lord answered me: If you repent, so that I restore you, in my presence you shall stand.” Yet another reminder for us that repentance only brings about good things. In the Gospel reading from Matthew 13, Jesus tells two very brief parables about what the Kingdom of heaven is like.
Jesus said the 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.” Ah, buried treasure. The stuff of dreams. In the parable, Jesus doesn’t say how the person found the buried treasure. Was it random? Did he have a map?
This story reminds me of the old pirate movies where someone finds a treasure map and tries to follow it to find the buried treasure. We would all love to do that, right? If only we had that treasure map. But wait! We do! It’s called the Church. Through Scripture and Tradition, with the great saints and the magisterium pointing the way, we all have access to the treasure map. Sometimes because of our own blindness, we can’t see it. But the greatest treasure map in history is always there, pointing the way to the Kingdom of heaven.
Father, you have given us the treasure map. May we always follow it all the way into the Kingdom of heaven. Amen.
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