{"id":1417,"date":"2014-07-27T12:07:32","date_gmt":"2014-07-27T16:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1417"},"modified":"2014-07-27T12:07:32","modified_gmt":"2014-07-27T16:07:32","slug":"17th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-a-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/17th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-a-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

17th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A<\/a>
\n1 Kings 3:5, 7-12
\nRomans 8:28-30
\nMatthew 13:44-52
\nJuly 27, 2014<\/p>\n

How valuable is the Kingdom of Heaven to us?<\/p>\n

Does the word \u201ctreasure\u201d fit?<\/p>\n

How much a treasure is it?<\/p>\n

Jesus talks about a treasure so valuable that when found, a person would give up anything for it.\u00a0 What are you willing to give up for Heaven?<\/p>\n

Or perhaps the better question might be, \u2018what won\u2019t you give up for Heaven?\u2019\u00a0 If there is something you won\u2019t give up \u2026 well that\u2019s a problem.\u00a0 Remember Jesus gave up his life so we could go to Heaven.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at it another way.\u00a0 God said to Solomon, \u201cAsk something of me and I will give it to you.\u201d\u00a0 If God made the same offer, no strings attached, what would you ask for?\u00a0 What\u2019s running through your mind right now?<\/p>\n

Would you ask for money?\u00a0 Prestige?\u00a0 Power?\u00a0 Less materialistic would you ask for the ability to be able to understand how your spouse thinks?<\/p>\n

Solomon could have asked for anything.\u00a0 He could have asked for everything to be done for him but he doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 Instead he asks for what he needs to be able to do what God asks of him.<\/p>\n

Solomon recognizes the important task he has been given as king.\u00a0 He also recognizes that he is a \u201cmere youth\u201d and doesn\u2019t know \u201chow to act.\u201d<\/p>\n

He asks for an \u201cunderstanding heart\u201d and the ability to \u201cdistinguish right from wrong,\u201d two things that we all need.<\/p>\n

So maybe we need to ask ourselves what do we feel lacking in, not in terms of money but in what we need to accomplish the task before us.<\/p>\n

Actually, maybe we even need to take a further step back and ask ourselves what we are supposed to be doing.\u00a0 Are we not able to do what we attempt because we are lacking something or is it because it isn\u2019t God\u2019s will?<\/p>\n

So the first question should be to ask what does God want us to do.\u00a0 Here lies our need for an \u201cunderstanding heart\u201d and the ability to \u201cdistinguish right from wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second question is what do we need to do it.\u00a0 This means we must be willing to admit our failings and weaknesses.<\/p>\n

And then I think that could be one more thing we might need to ask for, the courage to actually do what God asks of us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12 Romans 8:28-30 Matthew 13:44-52 July 27, 2014 How valuable is the Kingdom of Heaven to us? Does the word \u201ctreasure\u201d fit? How much a treasure is it? Jesus talks about a treasure so valuable that when found, a person would give up anything for …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-mR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1418,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417\/revisions\/1418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}