Sunday, July 27, 2014

The pearl of great price is Jesus in the Catholic Church outside of which there is no salvation :USCCB in today's Daily Mass Reading ignores this point

The pearl of great price, the treasure buried in the field for which a man sells everything to obtain is Jesus in the Catholic Church, it is the Kingdom of God present in the Sacraments of the Church.This is the Kingdom of God now.It is not separated from the Mystical Body of Christ  which will reach its fullness in the end times(escathological time).
In today's Gospel from Matthew( 13:44-52) Jesus is telling us that the Kingdom of God is His Presence in the Catholic Church, His Mystical Body, the only Way, the only Gate, to eternal salvation 'and which a man findeth sells all that he has to obtain it'.
 
'Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away.'
 
 All are welcome into the Mystical Body of Jesus but 'on the Final Day of Judgement the good and the bad will be sent to their respective eternal reward', says Fr.Thomas Petro, from the Diocese of Scranton, in his reflection on the USSCB video reflection on today's Mass Readings.
Fr.Petro does not equate the kingdom of God with the Catholic Church in which all need to find that pearl of great prize-salvation.Wisdom is important. God gifted Solomon with wisdom but may be Solomon should have asked for the grace of salvation. Commentaries say that he did not find it.
 
Pope John Paul's II's Dominus Iesus says that we should not separate the Kingdom of God from the Church.There is no mention of the Church by Fr.Petro in today 's Reflection.The USCCB does not associate the Kingdom of God with the Catholic Church in its theology.
18. The mission of the Church is "to proclaim and establish among all peoples the kingdom of Christ and of God, and she is on earth, the seed and the beginning of that kingdom".68 On the one hand, the Church is "a sacrament — that is, sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of unity of the entire human race".69 She is therefore the sign and instrument of the kingdom; she is called to announce and to establish the kingdom. On the other hand, the Church is the "people gathered by the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit";70 she is therefore "the kingdom of Christ already present in mystery"71 and constitutes its seed and beginning. The kingdom of God, in fact, has an eschatological dimension: it is a reality present in time, but its full realization will arrive only with the completion or fulfilment of history.-Dominus Iesus
 
The Kingdom of Heaven cannot be separated from Jesus and the Church.
 
Therefore, there can be various theological explanations of these terms. However, none of these possible explanations can deny or empty in any way the intimate connection between Christ, the kingdom, and the Church. In fact, the kingdom of God which we know from revelation, "cannot be detached either from Christ or from the Church.... If the kingdom is separated from Jesus, it is no longer the kingdom of God which he revealed.-Dominus Iesus (emphasis added)
Outside of Jesus in His Mystical Body , the Catholic Church, outside the Kingdom of God there is no salvation and all people on earth need to enter the Church , defacto, in the present times, with no exception, to find the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field, which is the Kingdom of Heaven.
-Lionel Andrades