In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21) The best way to know “where my treasure is” is not to contemplate my ideals, usually unassailably noble, but to examine my practical use of time and energy. To what do I actually devote my best self? That’s where my treasure is.
Today’s Gospel about the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price invites us to a double reflection. What do I really desire, deep down? Ultimately, we are all searching for something more, on a quest for God. Would I be prepared to give my all, as we see in today’s Gospel?
The pearl of great price and the hidden treasure deep within us is nothing less than the indwelling mystery of God! St. Augustine discovered the same truth when he acknowledged: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in every person that only God can fill”. If we were truly honest (in our heart of hearts), we would ask that this vacuum in us be filled by nothing less than the infinite wonder of God. St. Augustine tells God in another place “I pray that the whole of me would be filled with the whole of You”. This is the treasure we discover already buried in the field of our hearts that can never be taken away from us no matter how much the worries and distractions of the world try to stifle it.
Solomon let go all the other so called securities in his life and decided to rely completely on God. Like Solomon we are meant to recognise ‘that by turning everything to their good God cooperates with all those who love him - with all those that he has called according to his purpose’ - which purpose is to make us true images of his Son who is the eldest of many brothers and sisters and is now revealed to us as the treasure in the field we are meant to find, for nothing less will satisfy our longing for the Infinite wonder of God.