Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, bishop and doctor of the Church

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/080112.cfm

A woodland colony
of ants

"the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Using today's words for this gospel we might speak of priorities and focus. Children are often told in the United States, "There are no limits!" and "You can be anything you want to be!" Neither is true, of course; but we like to entertain our children with these and other myths. (Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc.)

There are limits and we have to choose. Jesus urges his disciples to invest everything they have in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Thomas of Celano tells this story about the young Saint Francis of Assisi, before he fully left the world:

One day when he had invoked the Lord's blessing with his whole heart, the Lord showed him what he must do. He was filled with such great joy that, failing to restrain himself in the face of his happiness, he carelessly mentioned something to others. Even though he could not remain silent because of the greatness  of the love inspired in him, he nevertheless spoke cautiously and in riddles. Just as he spoke to his special friend about a hidden treasure, so he endeavored to talk to others in figures of speech. He said that he did not want to go to Apulia, but promised to do great and noble deeds at home. People thought he wanted to get married, and they would ask him: "Do you want to get married, Francis?" He replied, "I will take a bride more noble and more beautiful than you have ever seen, and she will surpass the rest in beauty and excel all others in wisdom.

Indeed the unstained bride of God is

the true religion that he embraced,

and the hidden treasure the kingdom of heaven,  

that he sought with great longing.

For it had to be that the gospel can be fulfilled

in the one who was to be

in faith and truth 

a minister of the gospel.

Later Francis would say he had married Lady Poverty; on one occasion he and his fellows role-played his marriage to her. But she too is only a symbol of the hidden treasure and his intense desire to possess it. Whether we begin as children, adults or seniors we must set out daily to find that treasure, invest everything we own in it, and keep it for the Day of God's coming.