Finding a Treasure

Last Sunday's Gospel reading about a man finding treasures in a field made me reflect on a lot of things that have happened in my life. Reflection, I often tell myself, is a privilege of those who seem lacking in purpose in life, or those who have chosen contemplation as their vocation. Well, it doesn't have to be either, and life unreflected, I find, is like eating food that as no sweet juice left.

In early 2003, I discovered the world of blogging, and after scoffing at "rants of sweet young things", my resistance to blogging broke down and I started this very blog. What I didn't count on happening, is finding this whole community of Catholic bloggers, from whom I learned so many things about the Church's teaching and about living Christian life, that I otherwise wouldn't have picked up.

As this blog approached its 2nd anniversary, I'm reflecting upon finding treasures in the mother Church. For through the blogosphere, I found that treasure. There are many doctrines, many books and saints that I have since come to love, many habits, many devotions that I would never have encountered through Sunday mass attendance alone. Thare are many heretical beliefs—mostly Manichean—that I had unknowingly embraced, whose errors the Catholic community has shed light on.

That treasure is still there, like a gem shining beneath the soil. Yet I am ashamed to say that sometimes I take it for granted that since the treasure has been found, it is not going anywhere, hence the lack of urgency on my part to give up everything and buy the land of treasure. Recently, things in my life have sprung up — each demanding urgent attention. I only hope that it will not be too late: as St Augustine wrote in his Confessions, "'Let it be now, let it be now!', and merely by saying this I was on the point of making it, but I did not succeed." He was also the one who wrote: "How long, shall I go on saying 'tomorrow, tomorrow'? Why not make an end of my ugly sins at this moment?"

All it takes, St Augustine wrote, was an act of will. There is a quote that gave me comfort, of which I remind myself everyday; St Augustine quoted a friend, Ponticianus, whom he met just before his conversion: "[If] I wish, I could become the friend of God at this very moment."