杏MAP导航

By Christopher Wells

杏MAP导航 Leo resumed the special Saturday Jubilee Audiences this morning, focusing on Jesus’ saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field.”

began with a reflection on the “special charm” children feel in digging in the earth, “breaking the hard crust of the world to see what lies beneath.”

This, the 杏MAP导航 said, “is how the Kingdom of God is found. Hope is rekindled when we dig and break through the crust of reality, when we go beneath the surface.”

St Helena, a 'woman who seeks'

He reminded the faithful of the early Christians who, as soon as they were able to freely profess their faith, began to dig into their history, “especially in the places of Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection.”

He pointed to the example of St Helena, the mother of the first Christian emperor, who, according to a universal tradition, sponsored excavations in the Holy Land. St Helena, he said, is remembered as “a woman who seeks, a woman who digs.” And he noted, “The treasure that ignites hope is in fact the life of Jesus,” saying, “we must set out in search of His traces.”

Helena’s quest, the 杏MAP导航 suggested, might be explained by the crosses she bore in her own life, beginning with her humble origins. Throughout her life, Helena experienced sorrows and disappointments, but remained “a woman searching.” “She had decided to become a Christian,” the 杏MAP导航 said, “and always practiced charity, never forgetting the humble people from whom she herself had come.”

杏MAP导航 Leo highlighted her “dignity and faithfulness,” qualities that “still change the world today: they bring us closer to the treasure, like the work of a farmer.”

Finding the Kingdom of God

He emphasized that the work of “cultivating one’s own heart requires effort… but by digging, one finds; by lowering oneself one draws ever closer to that Lord Who stripped Himself to become like us.”

Recalling again the discovery of the relics of the Passion through the excavations of St Helena, the 杏MAP导航 said Jesus’ Cross “lies beneath the crust of our earth.”

It is always possible, 杏MAP导航 Leo concluded, “to trample heedlessly upon the treasure beneath our feet.” But, he said, “if we become like children, we will come to know another kingdom, another strength. God is always below us, to raise us up on high.”