Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Msgr. Michael Foster
Homily from the Televised Mass, NewsCenter1
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 30, 2023

Little Mary listened intently in catechism class as the teacher explained this parable of the treasure and the pearl of great price. Then she gave a detailed description of the eternal bliss of Heaven. She concluded her class by asking this question: “So, all of you now ready to go to heaven raise your hands.” 

Every hand went up except for little Mary’s. And so, the teacher asked, “Mary, don’t you want to go to heaven?”

Well Mary replied, “I’m not so sure. Mom was baking apple pie when I left home this morning.”

Back in the early days of kings and queens it was customary for each family to give a gift to the new king on his coronation day according to their means. Today in the first reading from the Book of Kings, God follows this custom and, in a dream, appears to Solomon and promises that he will grant the new young king of Israel whatever he might desire on his coronation day. It’s rather like the fairy tales in which a genie is found in a bottle and promises to grant you three wishes. Except in this case, it was real. 

Solomon did not ask for health, or wealth, or a long life, or even a promise of victory over his enemies of whom he had very many. Solomon asked for wisdom, for a heart that understands and listens. The wisdom he was asking for was to help him govern God’s people wisely and justly. He was asking for a gift that would help him distinguish right from wrong, that he might rule and serve correctly. 

We see in the story that God is very pleased with Solomon. Why? Because the gift he asked for was not for him, but it was for others. It was for the people of God who had been intrusted to him. In a word, Solomon asked for the necessary gift that would enable him to fulfill successfully the tasks of the vocation and the calling God was giving to him as the very young teenage king of Israel. 

The human heart can search for many years and can look in many places for happiness and not really find it. You and I can bypass that road which leads to the Kingdom of God again and again going off into various dead ends, cul de sacs, and blind alleys. I suspect that we have done this many times in the course of our Christian lifetime. 

Paul reminds the Romans in the second reading today that all things work for good for those who look to God and to his Kingdom first, and as our Lord promised in the gospel for those who do, for those who recognize that god in this kingdom is the truly one great pearl of great price worth more than anything else, then everything else that they need will be given to them besides. 

The little girl in my story was partially right. Mom’s apple pie is pretty dang good, and it made her think twice about whether she was ready to go to heaven on that particular day. But for us there are many things which come from God which are greater even than mom’s apple pie, and we have a zillion things that keep us attached to the earthly things of this world. So, Solomon gives us a wonderful example. He asks for gifts that would help him love and serve God well and God was pleased with his choice and even more important God was pleased with Solomon. We would do well to imitate this example. 

And so, my takeaway from my reflection today is: if god appeared to us in a dream tonight and promised to grant whatever we asked for, what would our answer be? The answer to the question tells you a lot about who you are and who God is in your life and about what you believe is the pearl of great price.