Step One: Someone asks, 'if your house was on fire and you only had time to grab one thing what would it be'?  The answer, of course, is yourself!  Our heart, our spiritual centre, is our one and only true treasure.  But it cannot be found on the surface of life.  It lies hidden in the field of ourselves.  And the price tag is high!  Costing not less than everything.
Step Two: On our way we have to feel our way through individual and collective consciousness into Sacred Awareness.  The Pearl of Great Price. Costing not less than everything.

Step Three: Becoming Love! Finding is not enough.  Selling is not enough.  These are only the first steps.  Once we are 'caught' in the Sacred Net, our lifestyle must change for the better.  Costing not less than everything.

"Do you understand all this"? Jesus asked them.  They said, "YES".

So then He told them that the disciple must be wise enough to know how to hold the old and the new in one easy movement. But hinted that pride of place be given to the new.  

In a nutshell, dear disciple.  What is found must be bought. In order to buy, we need to sell. In order to grow, we need to discern what's worth keeping and what needs to go.  Only Wisdom will light the darkened room enough to help us do this.

Once upon a time, a poverty stricken Rabbi from Warsaw fell asleep and dreamed of treasure buried under a bridge on the outskirts of Moscow.  It was a long arduous journey but he got himself there.   Excited, he waited till darkness had fallen, slipped over the wall and made his way under the bridge. To his surprise, he found a rabbi asleep.  He woke him up and asked him what he was doing there.  The Rabbi answered, "I was dreaming of treasure hidden under the floorboards of a poor rabbi from Warsaw".

          'Each person has a vintage wine cellar
                   But they seldom drink from it.'  (Meister Eckhart)

Most adult Catholics will be more familiar with humiliation, which is not the same thing as humility.  If only our teachers  etc had known this back then.

The humble person is, quite simply, someone who lives by the truth.  

Any farmer will tell you that it is not good to let the weeds grow with the wheat.  But in today's Gospel we are still in the land of parables and the world of the Spirit, where it makes perfect sense.
We might come back from a retreat, or a day of recollection, or a prayer gathering or Sunday Mass, and feel that we are ready to take on the world with love.  Then all it takes is someone to press the wrong button and we are singing another hymn which might not sound good in church.  St. Peter is a great example of someone who can dream more than he can enact. One day he is swearing that he will lay down his life for Jesus, the next he is into complex denial.  Yet the Gospels note that this happened at the exact time the cock crowed.  It is dawn and the precious moment of illumination.  The teaching is clear.  Sometimes our failings, our failures and our fragility can get us where we need to go more surely than our strength!
The wonderful poet, Rainer Maria Rilke decided to try psychotherapy but gave up after a few sessions.  When he was asked why, he said, " I realised that if I got rid of all my demons, I might lose my angels along the way."  

When we fall we are humbled by the experience.  Perhaps we have not progressed as far as we thought. We come to see that becoming Love is a never ending journey.  Far from being discouraged we search for ways to make peace, certain that freedom awaits. Assured that the Light which the darkness can never put out continues to illumine our pathways.

Jesus, leaves the 'house' church, where those who have already given their hearts to Him are gathered, and goes to the Sea.  He is looking for more fish, and they arrive in a great school. So Jesus, the fisher of people, sits and teaches in a boat.

It is said that there are two kinds of people.  Those who like to divide people into two types and those who don't! Lol.  And that there are two kinds of teachers.  One who loves the subject, and one who loves the student. Jesus loves people, so he entrusts them with the Parables, which are always a little strange and a little disconcerting and hugely challenging.  

In today's gospel, a sower scatters seed in an outrageous way, yet yields a fabulous harvest.  The listener is tipped off that they are on a spiritual quest with this one.  Some get it, and some don't.  Some want to get it, and some don't.  But Jesus speaks in Parables so that the story can give God a chance to work in their hearts and bring them to understand the 'secret' of the kingdom of heaven.

He explains it like this:  The seed is always sown by a lunatic farmer.  

The evil one might steal it away
It may be received with joy and then squandered. 
It might not stand up to competition from other seeds. 
Yet, when the word and the soil marry the result is beauty beyond imagination.  

Jesus speaks of four people.  But it is better to think of one person with four options!

The parable invites the beloved to grow in Spiritual Wisdom, so getting it is always the work of the Holy Spirit. This is why Jesus is a Teacher who loves the listener.  He introduces them to the presence of God in their own hearts and then watches in joy as the seed begins to grow.

So if we were to ask Jesus what is God like?  He would say, 

"Why, God is like,
A person who loves too much
An ointment that costs too much, and is poured too much
A seventy times seven God who forgives too much
Like a seed that grows too much
And yields thirty, sixty, a hundred fold".

We all know what it is like when life leaves us exhausted.  The ache in our very bones lets us know we might have overdone it.  And there is a weariness of the heart which comes when things are too much.  This is harder to soothe, for the mind had a mind of its own and can forbid entry to the spiritual wellspring.

Two examples. She came to see me - a shadow of her former lively self.  Sleep evaded her and she worried about everything.  His situation was no better.  His days a nightmare, his nights of broken rest.  The situation was obvious.  When I studied theology I learned that God never sleeps!  I thought, 'Poor God.' Jan gave me a bookmark on Wednesday which invited praying through the night.  It concluded, ' God is up all night anyway!

When we feel we have to control everything, we can't trust enough to rest or sleep.  If we do, the world might fall apart.  The exhausted body.  The vigilante mind!

The Divine Teacher offers a way out.  Abandon our wise and learned status and gently embrace our inner child.  And he humbly invites all who feel overburdened by the need to save themselves, or what is worse, everyone else,  to come to his ineffable gentleness and pick up a lighter burden.

The Poet Rainer Maria Rilke reflects on the labouring steps of a swan on dry land.  Then,

     ..... As he lets himself down
Into the water which receives him gaily
And which flows joyfully under
And after him, wave after wave,
While the swan, unmoving and marvellously calm
Is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown.

Or for cat lovers, D H Lawrence has this image,

 ......  a cat asleep on a chair, at peace, at peace.
Sleeping on the heart of the living world
Yawning at home before the fire of life
Feeling the presence of the living God
Like a great reassurance
A deep calm in the heart.