Last Tuesday, on July 25, we commemorated the feast day of St James the Greater, one of Jesus’ original apostles and the first apostle who was martyred as recorded in the 12th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The pilgrimage of St James in Spain is a very important part of my personal spirituality, as I have hiked that pilgrimage trail on five different occasions. When I traveled to Spain for the first time in the summer of 2003 to hike that pilgrimage route, I also had the opportunity to visit some other religious sites around the country of Spain. One of the most interesting places I visited was the city of Segovia, which is the city where St. John of Cross spent his last days and where he is buried. There is an ancient Roman aqueduct that was used to transport water that is located in the city of Segovia as well. In Segovia, I visited the apartment of the famous Spanish poet Antonio Machado, which is now a museum. This is where Machado wrote most of his well-known poems. One of his poems talks about the state of his soul. This is what Machado wrote:
One clear day the wind with the aroma of jasmine called my heart:
( The wind said:) "In exchange for my aroma I'd love to have the fragrance of all your roses."
(I replied:) " I have no roses, there aren't any flowers in my garden; all have died."
(The wind then said:) " I will then take the fountain's waters, the yellow leaves and the withered petals."
The wind left...My heart wailed....
"Soul, what have you done to your garden?"
As Machado writes, our soul can be a wonderful garden with beautiful flowers and a sweet aroma. Or our soul be a garden where all the flowers have died and withered, where there is nothing but dead plants and parched ground.
There are a lot of things we can claim for our treasure in life. In recent years, there have been reality TV shows that have addressed the issue of hoarding, how some people accumulate material possessions to the extreme, to the extent that they accumulate so many stacks and things that they barely move around.
Jesus’ parable today addresses the great treasures that people find in the lives, such as buried treasure in a field that is so wonderful that one is willing to sell everything to obtain it, or a pearl that a merchant finds after many years of searching. The point of these parables is that God’s kingdom is that treasure for us, far more valuable than any earthly treasure. Yet, we can be so caught up with our material treasures on earth that nothing else matters. Some in our society are ready to sell their souls for the accumulation of material wealth. Some of them may end up compromising their salvation for the sake of fame, power, popularity or worldly success. That is the sentiment that Antonio Machado captures in his poem. The Lord can come to us in a quiet whisper and a calm breeze with the good news of salvation, with a call for us to follow him that can be as subtle and beautiful as the smell of jasmine blooming on a hot summer’s night. Yet, if we’ve neglected our faith, if the garden of our soul has not been cultivated, we might not be ready to receive God’s message, no matter how beautiful and inviting it may be.
When I was in Rome with the youth choir from St Richard parish in 2010, we visited the basilica of St Paul. For centuries, Church officials had tried to find the exact spot of Paul’s tomb. One spot of ground was ruled out because it looked solid rock, so they thought that there was no way Paul could have been buried on that spot. However, it turned out not to be rock, but soil that had been hardened for so long that it was hard as rock. This is the place where Paul’s body was eventually found. Just like soil that can become hard as a rock, our hearts can become so hard that we might not think that this is the place where we’ll find our treasure, so we start looking for treasure in other places. But Jesus tells us that we need to keep searching for the treasure that we will find only in God’s kingdom, for this is the only treasure that is worth a great price.
The great Catholic writer Ron Rolheiser writes that there are many tragic ways to die in our world, but there are two ways that are most tragic of all. If we die without expressing the love we have in our hearts for God and for our brothers and sisters, or if we die without feeling the love that God has for us, or without feeling the love of our brothers and sisters, those are the greatest tragedies of all. God, indeed, is the essence of love. And since we were made in God’s image, we are called to love and to experience the love of others. May we keep searching. May we never give up until we find the treasure that awaits us in God’s kingdom, that awaits us in God’s love.
