When I was in college invariably during exam week there were numerous ways to distract oneself. Usually I would read a book that had nothing to do with any of the current academic subjects I was supposed to be studying. Recently, although I have not been taking exams, I have distracted myself with a novel I had read a long time ago in seminary. It is called Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather. There is a chapter called, “The Miser” about an old priest of the newly found Diocese of Santa Fe who would bury treasure underneath the dirt floor of his casa. Vicar Joseph Viallant is called to anoint the priest who is on his deathbed. By all appearances, the miser priest is poor, but his last confession is that there are buried treasures underneath the surface of the dirt floor. After his death, they dig up the treasure finding a whopping $200,000 worth of accumulated goods. This is a good chunk of change for those times and an impressive stash to say the least.
After reading the chapter my immediate reaction was, “Well at least I’m not like the miser priest.” But then I thought of it again and concluded that perhaps I can be! The Gospel reading for today is impressive and demanding. Jesus tells us to store up treasure in heaven, not treasure for ourselves. Yet so very often the accumulation of goods within our lives begin to stack up and we become bogged down by the weight of their enslavement. These “treasures” we store up for ourselves may not necessarily be material possessions like the miserly old priest in the mission territory of Sante Fe. There are “treasures” we begin to hold onto like independence and false freedom saying that we can do anything we please. Or we hoard our time embracing it covetously and shoving people to the wayside because they are too inconvenient. We often are plagued by our own internal thoughts and moods that hoard our attention and ability to serve others. So the parable is not just about filling this barn with physical stuff, but filling our souls with other stuff other than God. Saint Paul exhorts us, “Seek what is above where Christ is seated...not of what is on earth.” Yet how so ever slowly these earthen treasures load us down and bog down the true freedom of a detached soul.
I’ve been driving the bus for sometime now. I am tired of driving the bus to be honest with you. But there is one dimension I like about it! Let’s just picture ourselves rumbling and a bumbling down the highway on our way to Kangaroo Lake. We are 5400 lbs of metal and raw diesel crushing the asphalt on the way to our goal--this chapel! The bus itself is a bit of a cumbersome and crude piece of machinery, but it is holding something very precious! YOU! I got to thinking that you are the treasure of which we speak about because each of you have an immortal soul that is yearning to be fashioned and molded into something much greater than what it is now. This cargo of souls is searching for a treasure which is not of this world. The treasure is saying to the world, “Vanity of vanities....I’m going on a CYE! I am going to make retreat and be with Jesus to pray!” I see all the rich and fancy cars up here in the Door County baby boom playland and all of them are so empty. But our bus was stuffed today! That is the real treasure!
Back in one of our first summers of CYE, I obtained a monstrance from Holy Spirit Parish. Later I was accused of stealing the monstrance, but that is of little consequence. I wanted to bury it. What do I mean you might ask? Bury a monstrance? But why? My thought was to make an activity out of it all. I had a treasure chest made and we buried it on expedition and the summer staff and expeditioners did a geo-cache hunt for it. Once discovered, we took the monstrance out and, of course, placed it on the altar. We took Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and exposed him in adoration for us to encounter the living person of Jesus. It would be easy to believe that the gold monstrance was the treasure and the parish I “borrowed” it from certainly got that! But the real hidden mysterious treasure was the gift of Jesus in the Eucharist that we adored and consumed and became more and more like. This is the transcendent treasure of which Jesus speaks of in today’s gospel reading, “Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven!”
When we come to receive Jesus, we need to make an inventory analysis of our souls. We need to examine our conscious and see where we have become miserly in our thoughts and actions. It is easy to say, “Well at least I don’t have a barn and stash all this stuff in it! Not me!” But these are words of pride. We have done this. We have accumulated some baggage that we need to empty ourselves of. We don’t want to be like the miser in the story of a distraction of life. We want to become like the one who really doesn’t have anything. The one who thinks of heavenly realities and the becoming of which will be fulfilled within ourselves in the Beatific Vision. Jesus wants us to empty ourselves because He did it himself. He emptied himself on the Cross...quit literally! The treasury gushed forth as blood and water; the complete self-emptying was one of extreme love for souls. We may miss the mark in this regard, but by receiving Jesus once again, we are emptied of false and worldly harvests. Instead we are filled up with the treasure of love and new life. A treasure of redemption and mercy. A barn full of robust golden grain truly ready to be taken up in the harvest of the end time. “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” We will not fill ourselves up with remorse and bitterness and a prideful resolve to keep God’s earthly treasure within and the heavenly treasure at bay. Let us not be miserly! Let us be empty. Let us receive. Let us pour out this new found treasure to others.
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