“What we spend, we lose. - What we give away will be ours forever.”

I kept on digging the hole deeper and deeper looking for the treasure chest until I finally lifted my head, looked up and realized that I had dug my own grave." - St Dominic

Gospel Text: (MT 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.”

On the outside, there was nothing extraordinary about Jesus. He dressed simply and never tried to draw undue attention to himself. The son of a carpenter, he probably had callouses and dirty fingernails. What’s more, he had a habit of making friends with lepers, prostitutes, and other undesirables. Why would so many people be attracted to him?

It isn’t his outer appearance that makes Jesus so attractive. It’s his inner life: the love, the compassion, the mercy. Even in his sacramental presence, there’s not much that is appealing. The Host is made up only of wheat and water, and is often just an unadorned wafer. And yet people could spend hours lost in contemplation of the One who is present through this plain, everyday sign of unleavened bread.

Spending our life seeking Jesus’ inner beauty has the potential to bring us more joy and delight than any treasure on earth could ever give. Jesus is the most captivating, most magnificent, the most desirable treasure that we could ever dedicate our lives to.

The Kingdom, which God created for us is peace, justice and liberty in both this life and the next. To reach it is, at the same time, a gift from God and a human responsibility. In front of the greatness of this divine gift we realize the imperfection and instability of our own efforts, quite often destroyed by our sins, our wars and our malice that at times look insurmountable. Nevertheless, we must have confidence, because what looks impossible for man is more than possible for God.