Dear friends,
There are so many things we care about and we cherish in life. Sometimes, when we sit back and assess them, we wonder whether they are worth of our sacrifices. While these situations can be important for us, today Jesus invites us to consider every and each thing for its worth. Of all things, he tells us that one is the most important, that is eternal life or, to say the kingdom of heaven.
As disciples, we are invited to look at this invitation from a double perspective. For one, it is about ourselves. We all aspire to go to heaven. Yet we overload our desire of heaven with so many other details and sometimes unnecessary things which choke our desire and make it wither. Today, Jesus tells us that there is nothing that can be put on a balance to compare with the kingdom of heaven. Nothing can be compared with everlasting life which only he can give us. The only thing we can do and which he expects from us is openness to his call as disciple. Let us all be transformed by the radiance of his light in this eucharist to respond to the call. Secondly, once we let our hearts be transformed by the power of his love, and we focus on the most important thing, which is heaven and everlasting life, we will have the courage to sell everything else. We will hold nothing for ourselves because our life will be his life in us. Transformed by Christ, we embark of the path of discipleship to reach out to others and lead them to Jesus who calls us to follow him.
Indeed, nothing can be compared to the love of God revealed to us in Jesus. That is why I invite all of us today to trade everything that could pull us back and knock us down to embrace the kingdom offered to us in the eucharist: our anxieties, sickness, misunderstanding, shortcomings, fears, worries and everything else. Because once we have Christ with us, we shall never want anything else. And let us continue to pray for one another and for our parish family.
Fr. Emery