Seventeenth Sunday - 2020

A woman purchased the 11.5-inch-long (29 centimetres) "lunar sample return bag" for $995 in February 2015, at an auction held on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service in Texas. Turns out it was actually the very bag Neil Armstrong used to bring back moon rocks from the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.  The bag had been on loan to a museum whose curator ended up in count and the bag grouped in with other items was ordered to be put up for auction. Realizing its authenticity, NASA went to court to try to get it back but were unsuccessful. The woman eventually auctioned it off through Sotheby’s for $1,812,500 million dollars. A few years ago, a valuable painting by the Canadian folk artist, Maud Lewis, discovered at the New Hamburg Thrift Centre, run by the Mennonite Central Committee of Ontario. It was sold at auction for $45,000.00. Here you have a couple of examples of “Pearls of Great Price” being discovered and making someone very rich. (Before the Covid-19 restrictions) it was quite common for people to head out on a Saturday or Sunday morning to go hunting through garage sales and flee markets, looking for one of those “pearls of great price”.  And some of those folks may have walk right past a church, with its doors wide open in welcome, not realizing that inside that church there is a “True Pearl of Great Price” – the one Jesus is referring to in today’s gospel, the Pearl that can be had at no cost and who's value cannot be calculated. Churches are once again opening their doors. Yet, the fact remains that the numbers are few who value the great treasure they hold – that it is there at the Eucharistic table one encounters Jesus, who invites those seeking true treasures to find a personnel relationship with Him, as He gives Himself in this sacrament; bringing the gift of Salvation and Eternal Life. But this “Pearl of Great Price” must be carefully guarded, for we must never forget that there is a Thief on the prowl, everywhere today, seeking to steal away our Precious Gift – and many today have lost their “Pearl of Great Price” to Satan’s thievery and deceit. That safe place, where we keep our gift secure, is to be found in the practice of daily, personal prayer, together with a strong bond of ecclesial union within parish life. Alone, we are no match for the master Thief. When garage sales finally begin to appear again you may get an invitation from a friend, some Sunday, to join them on a garage sale/flee market hunt. And you may like to join them. But you, in turn, might also invite them to join you on your Sunday visit with Jesus, in his House of Treasures, where they too might find the Pearl of Great Price.