The past three weeks, our Lord has been explaining the Kingdom of Heaven using different images or parables, and we have been exploring what each of these representations of the Kingdom can teach us about prayer, since it is through prayer that the Kingdom begins growing in our hearts. Today we arrive at the last of these images of the Kingdom, which go to the heart of what prayer really is.

          As we’ve seen the past few weeks, most of us frequently experience frustration with the lack of the quality of our prayer, either because we know that we should give more time to the Lord, or because when we do, nothing seems to happen. It would be easy to think that we want too much out of prayer, that we have unrealistic expectations of what prayer might be like, maybe because our everyday prayer doesn’t measure up to experiences we had in the past, or to the way that other people talk about prayer.

          But the problem isn’t that you want too much out of prayer. It’s that you want too little. You want consolation, peace, understanding, clarity, a resolution to a difficult situation or conflict. All good things, and frequent fruits of prayer, but they are not the real end goal.

          We struggle to pray in the first place, and we struggle to find fulfillment in prayer, because we think of it as something that we primarily do. I’m so busy, so I don’t have time to dedicate to prayer. When I pray, nothing seems to happen. Or, if we do pray, we struggle with pride, because we can’t help but think that we’ve done something great by giving God that time. And then we get disappointed when we don’t receive those intended fruits of prayer, even though we heroically carved time out of a busy day for prayer.

          Before prayer is your gift to God, it is His gift to you. Rather than thinking that God should thank and reward you for the immense privilege of spending time with humble you, we should be thanking Him for the gift of spending time with Him in prayer.

          So, what is the greater good we should really desire from prayer? This is where the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price are so helpful. “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.” Why is the Kingdom of Heaven like this? Because the center of the Kingdom is the Lamb seated on the Throne. Our lives are on the path to Heaven if we have discovered the joy of knowing Jesus Christ, if it is Him that we desire above all else.

          We use this parable of the pearl of great price or the treasure in the field as a metaphor for the religious life, for those men and women who have joyfully sold everything to obtain that greatest good, Christ Himself. But there are people who get this hiding in plain sight.

          You can tell a lot about someone from the homescreen on his phone. It might be a spouse, the children, or maybe an image of our Lord or the Blessed Mother. I was feeling nosy recently and picked up the phone of one of our teenage altar servers to see what was on his homescreen. These are normal guys who play sports and hang out with their friends, so I thought I’d find something related to Bishop Dwenger football, or a star professional athlete, or maybe a girlfriend I hadn’t heard about yet. I found something very different. Behind the 40+ unread Snapchat notifications, there was a picture of the Eucharist exposed on the altar, with a priest genuflecting in adoration, and a simple quote: “Take all this world, and give me only You.”

          This is what prayer is really all about. What we hope to receive in prayer is Christ Himself. Catholics haven’t historically talked a lot about a personal relationship with Christ, not because that’s too high of a bar, something that’s not really necessary – but because it’s too low a bar. The Catholic devotional tradition talks about divine intimacy or divine union – becoming one with the beloved. What we want from prayer is Christ Himself – not even, first and foremost, His friendship, but Him.

          To pray this way, you have to live this way; and to live this way, you have to pray this way. Neither will happen without the other. Perhaps friendship is actually the best place to start. Rather than reject the notion of a personal relationship with Christ, or friendship with Christ, we need to understand that friendship is an analogy here, a way of understanding with our small human intellect what it could mean “to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that [Christ] might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters,” as St. Paul puts it today.

          In true friendship, it is also true that what we desire from that person isn’t primarily whatever activity we do together, but rather the friend herself. Most of our friendships are friendships of utility or pleasure. Friendships of utility are based on the other person’s usefulness – a business partner or study partner. You appreciate what they can do for you. Somewhat better are friendships of pleasure, in which we share common interests or hobbies. We have a good time together, and we enjoy being together for the fun we have engaging in those activities.

          Neither of these friendships are bad – but they are incomplete. Real friendship – what the philosophers called “friendships of virtue” – is when you appreciate – or desire – the person himself, for the good person he is. What you value most is not what you do together, but the way she makes you a better person, and how you grow together. What do you want out of this friendship? Not material advantage, not just a good time. You want your friend.

          Human friendship, then, gives you that chance to build up the natural dispositions upon which God’s grace can build in your relationship with Him. The more you have real friendships – friendships of virtue, in which you desire your friend herself rather than the utility or pleasure that comes from your common activities and pursuits – the more you are disposed to desire nothing more than Christ Himself from God, to obtain that pearl of great price, to see time with Him in prayer as a gift from Him to you, long before it could be something you do for Him.

          To have that desire in our relationship with the Lord – not for His consolations, or a resolution to our problems, but Him Himself – is to find the treasure buried in the field that is worth rushing to sell everything to obtain.

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

XVII Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXVI