HOW VALUABLE IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN?

HOW VALUABLE IS THE KINGDOM OF
HEAVEN?

Have we ever wondered what the Kingdom of Heaven is like? Jesus has already anticipated our curiosity and shows us some attributes of the Kingdom in the gospel.

There are many times that Jesus tries to explain to those who listen to him what the Kingdom of Heaven is like, and to make this explanation he uses images of life; for example, in today's Sunday Gospel (Mt 13: 44-52) Jesus presents us with three ways of understanding what the Kingdom of Heaven is like: a hidden treasure, a valuable pearl, and a net full of fish.

It seems that to understand the how, first we have to understand how much? When referring to how much, we refer to the value that the Kingdom of Heaven has in itself, and to the value that each one has given to the Kingdom of Heaven. These two things are not necessarily the same. The Kingdom of God is valuable in itself, and does not depend on our appreciation, because God is precisely in the Kingdom of God. Which leads us to ask ourselves, how valuable is God to each of us? Here is the key to everything.

We recently wondered what we would be able to do to reach heaven? To answer that we would be capable of anything, even giving up anything else, we must first assume that there is nothing more valuable than the Heaven promised by Christ. We could reach this conclusion if we make the effort to compare the value of the things we have, or those things we experience, in contrast to the divine. Only by placing one in front of the other can we inwardly order our affections, which gives them their value, and discover what comes first and what comes after.

 

For every disciple of Christ, it is clear that God is first, for God himself tells us so Christ reminds us of it in (Mk 12: 28-34). If God occupies the first place in our lives, and we live trying to do God's will, then we have understood that God is our greatest treasure, so we can express it with Psalm 16: “You are my Lord, my goodness; nothing is comparable to you.” (Ps 16: 2). Yes, God is everything to us, let us always do our best to get to where He is, because God is our Heaven, He is our treasure, He is the greatest desire of the soul. Amen.

 

P. Carlos Flores, OSA