The merchant in search of the pearl of the Kingdom of God
Homiletic of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos
THE MERCHANT IN SEARCH OF THE PEARL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
«The kingdom of heaven is also like a merchant who goes in search of precious pearls; found a pearl of great value, will, he sells all his possessions and buys it»
Author:
Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.
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Dear Readers of The Island of Patmos,
summer time can become a propitious moment to try to deepen our faith and its contents. It is a period of freedom which is a sacred time in which, like God, let's rest. For this reason it becomes a time in which that rest can also be dedicated to reading and prayer. Our search for God, of our being with him never ceases to take place. Father Henri De Lubac wrote:
“The human mind is so made that it cannot have a truth and hold it, if not searching and always searching. The rest of thought is equivalent to its death.".
In the parables of Jesus, who have already been talking about the Kingdom for some Sundays, on this XVII Sunday of ordinary time we focus on the continuous search for the Kingdom. A research that continues incessantly for us. In fact, Jesus expresses three parables. What seems to me central is precisely that of the merchant and the pearl of great value in which the Lord narrates:
«The kingdom of heaven is also like a merchant who goes in search of precious pearls; found a pearl of great value, will, he sells all his possessions and buys it»
Jesus uses the analogy of the merchant. A figure who must have been well known to the Lord's listeners at the time. First we have a merchant who goes in search. A searching merchant is a person who is very attentive to the territory in which he is searching, to the movements of other prospectors and traders. He is a person who has informed himself precisely before setting off on the road, researched places to look for pearls before travelling.
The merchant is the metaphor of the believer who consistently seeks God. We Catholics have three great "signposts" on the path of faith: the Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium. These are our prior sources, with which we then build our act of faith. Everyone has his personal yes to the Lord, in which he builds his own spirituality and his way of believing and living the faith.
The merchant is looking for pearls. Until he finds the precious pearl which he then decides to buy. A pearl that for listeners of the time is a stone of inestimable value, because imported from India. Therefore the merchant is the one who goes in search of different precious pearls and finally finds the pearl, the priceless one for which he sells everything.
Because Jesus uses the image of the pearl (margaritas in Greek)? The pearl is a biblical image found in several passages. For example, in the Song of Songs (Ct 1,10) pearls are the jewels that the Beloved wears around her neck. While in Apocalypse, the pearl is one of the materials with which the new Jerusalem is built (AP 21,21).
The Pearl that the believer seeks to acquire it is the kingdom of God. This kingdom of God is assimilated to the pearl of Song of Songs, we will be able to say that it is the Church. Indeed, the Canticle is traditionally considered a dialogue of love between the Beloved who is Christ and the Beloved who is the Church. If instead the pearl is the material with which the Celestial Jerusalem is built, we will say that the Kingdom of God to be appropriated in every way is Heaven.
Applied all to us believers we seek God, we could say that the precious pearl is to reach Eternal life in Paradise, walking in the Catholic Church, freeing us from everything that hinders our faith. Like this, also the other pearls which are second hand, they are therefore those both material and spiritual goods that seem so only in appearance, but which actually distance us from communion in the Catholic Church and with God, and that do not get us to the Kingdom of God in Heaven.
The metaphor of the merchant who sells everything and goes, finally it shows that the Lord places us on a path of faith in which he asks us to give everything to reach the kingdom, invites us to strive as much as possible to be consistent in faith, get involved knowing that you lose everything to gain everything (Fil 3, 8: R, Manes 211). That is, walking on the path to the kingdom of God all the sacrifices we would have made to get to Heaven, even now it will be spiritual gains, a hundredfold obtained with the grace of God.
We ask the Lord to be merchants more and more eager to obtain the pearls of God, to learn to love the whole world with the joy of one who has received the treasure of heaven.
Amen!
Santa Maria Novella in Florence, 29 July 2023
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