Solomon ascended to the throne as king of Israel as a young man. He tried to follow the footsteps of his father King David, but he was a neophyte and lacked administrative acumen. While he was at Gibeon to offer prayers and sacrifices (the Temple had not been built), he had an encounter with the Lord in his dream who invited him to ask for whatever he wanted. As a young man full of youthful exuberance, one would have expected him to ask for wealth or to become an invincible king, but rather, he asked for the gift of discernment which would enable him to lead the people entrusted to his care. The Lord was pleased with his request because he prioritised the needs of the people over his own. The Lord granted him the gift of wisdom in these words, “I give you a heart wise and shrewd as none before you has had and none will have after you.” This gift of wisdom enabled young Solomon to lead his people to ‘greener pastures’.

The wisdom of King Solomon is exemplified in the story of the two mothers in which one of them who lost her baby exchanged her dead baby with the baby of the other mother (1 Kgs 3:16-28). A fight broke out between the two mothers over whose baby was still alive. The matter was brought to King Solomon to adjudicate. He ordered that the baby who was alive should be split in half and each portion given to one of the mothers. The mother who had lost her baby, but who was falsely claiming the baby who was alive, was happy with the order of the king, but the true mother objected vehemently to the killing of the baby. King Solomon, having observed the behaviour of the two women to his initial order, rescinded that order and decreed that the baby should be given to the woman who opposed the killing of the baby because she was the baby’s real mother.

The theme of wisdom and discernment links the first Reading to the Gospel passage (Mt 13:44-52), which narrates three parables about the Kingdom of Heaven. Firstly, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a hidden treasure which someone discovered and was willing to sacrifice everything he owned to acquire it. Secondly, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl of great value for which a merchant was willing to trade in everything he owned to purchase it. Thirdly, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea which brings in a haul of different kinds of sea creatures which would be sorted, selecting the good and edible seafood while the inferior and baby fish would be either thrown away or returned to the sea.

For Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven is something of great value which people are willing to make sacrifices for, even to the point of shedding their blood to obtain. We recall that St Paul, for instance, was a persecutor of the followers of Jesus Christ, however, once he experienced Jesus on his way to Damascus to arrest the Christians, he stated that nothing could outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ his Lord; for his sake, he had counted all previous advantages as disadvantages so that he could know Christ and be counted among his faithful followers (Ph 3:7-11). Here, St Paul made a fundamental choice for Christ and his Kingdom. What motivated him henceforth was the desire to do what pleased Christ. We are invited to imitate St Paul in discerning that nothing outweighs the supreme advantage of experiencing Christ our Lord.

Since seeking the Kingdom of Heaven should be the activity that pervades our being as we have been grafted into it by our baptism, we are invited to place our time, energy, and resources at the service of the Kingdom of Heaven. Just as the Lord reminded the people of Israel in the Old Testament that the Lord their God was one Lord and they must love him with all their heart, soul, and strength, so must our thoughts and actions be driven by the urgency to tailor our lives to the demands of God’s Kingdom.

As we celebrate Grandparents Day, with the theme — I will never forget you, chosen by Pope Leo XIV, we acknowledge the invaluable roles they play in our lives. We pray that the Good Lord would protect and reward them abundantly! Amen.