Homily for Thursday, 31 July 2014– Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Thursday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 18:1-6; Psalm 146:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6ab; Matthew 13:47-53

What are the treasures that await us in God’s “storeroom”? Jesus ends a long series of parables in the Gospel of Matthew with these words that we hear today: “Every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” And so I wonder what “the new and the old” treasures in this storeroom are that benefit the “scribe… instructed in the Kingdom of heaven”; the treasures God gives us help us on the way to salvation. What does Jesus mean by this saying in Matthew’s Gospel?

How many of us have gone to a store only to find that what we are looking for; something we need is not on the shelves? We ask the clerk, who says, “there may be one of those in the back room.” The clerk finds and brings out the last of the old stock. Or how many of us see an advertisement for something new, and so we go and buy it? In terms that have nothing to do with our faith, then, many of us have benefited from storerooms with old and new stock.

In terms of our Christian faith, the saying of Jesus in today’s Gospel reading about treasures “new and…old” makes me think of St. Augustine’s reflection on his own conversion in his Confessions. St. Augustine exclaims in prayer to God: “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new… You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”

Augustine sensed God’s beauty; the treasure that is relationship with God, both “so old and so new” and this made him desire more of this relationship with God. I think that this is at the heart of what Jesus means when he speaks in today’s Gospel reading of “the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.”

Do we not all desire to be with God? Do we not all desire salvation; the “Kingdom of heaven.” We desire not ordinary objects, however much we need or want these, both the old and the new from a store, but we desire God himself. Once we have experienced relationship with God, we desire more; deeper and stronger relationship. This is love; the love of God with which God made us to love God and one another. And so we might pray in words like those of St. Augustine for the treasures of God’s storeroom; treasures both new and old; for God to strengthen our relationships with him and with one another and to lead us to eternal life.

“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new… You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”