Parable of the Pearl

Delayed long enough. Had 3 posts in mind, but never got round to posting it. Hope it doesn't take too long.
Tues night's sharing was taken from Mt 27:45-56
And its been quite a few days, so hope I can remember what I shared. Don't know why I didn't record it in my palm.

The first thing that struck me, was the song we sang at the beginning : So You Would Come. Because on mon nite, I met a friend, who was telling me what Fr Luke preached on sunday. He asked the congregation to close their eyes, and think of the most holy, God-pleasing thing that they had done. After which he said, "God didn't love you any more because of that". Then he asked them to think of the most hideous, sinful thing that they had done. And "God didn't love you any less because of that". And immediately I thought of the lyrics of this song.

"Nothing you can do, could make Him love you more,
and nothing that you've done could make Him close the door.
Because of His great love, He gave His only Son
Everything was done so you would come"

And yes, thats the concept so hard to grasp. So often we want to gain God's love by trying to be holy, when actually it's because of His love that we want to be holy.

Then Fr Luke also talked about the parable of the pearl. Explaining how a pearl is formed. It starts out as an ugly piece of dirt. But by embedding itself in the oyster, it slowly gets coated, over and over again with nacre until it becomes a beautiful shiny pearl. And that is how we can also be if we allow ourselves to be transformed by Christ, by allowing ourselves to be coated by His love.

The last part of my sharing is using Fr Cantalamessa's sharing on the passage

"On the other hand, the parable does not say that "a man sold everything he had and began to look for a hidden treasure." We know how these stories end: One loses what one has and finds no treasure. These are stories of illusions, of visionaries.

In this story, a man found a treasure, and because he found it he sold everything he had to acquire it. One must first find the treasure to have the strength and joy to sell everything."

So look for the treasure. And once you find it. Do everything you can to own it.

Then someone in the group shared about the contrast between Jesus' death (light turning into darkness)

"From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon."

Mt 27:45

and his birth (darkness turning into light)

"And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was."

Mt 2:9