Blessed Stanley Rother
One
In Matthew 13:44-46 Jesus said to his disciples: “The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.”
This Gospel illustrates the life of Blessed Stanley Rother.
Stanley was born in Oklahoma, became a priest and missionary, and in 1981, at the age of 46, was killed by a Marxist death squad in Santiago, Guatemala. He is the first American to be declared a martyr.
Blessed Stanley, along with all the other Saints and martyrs, demonstrated through his life and death, that he had found the treasure which Jesus just spoke to us about.
Have we found that treasure?
Two
As is the case in all the lives of the holy men and women that we call the Saints, there is much to be said about them and what they did for the good of humanity. Blessed Stanley is no different.
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure, buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
Stanley had searched for God, for Heaven, for that otherworldly treasure. To locate it must not have been easy for him, and for that matter, for any of us. Jesus makes that understood by the fact that He said, the treasure “was buried in a field.”
Now think about that. Imagine a huge field, tilled or untilled. It would be difficult enough to find an object in it but notice the other word Jesus used. The treasure was “buried”. Try finding a buried object, be it a treasure or otherwise!
To discover it you need conviction, determination, and dedication. You especially need the right desire. That desire is what distinguishes a saint from someone who isn’t a saint.
St. Thomas Aquinas, when asked by his younger sister what she needed to become a saint, replied, “You need to want it!”
Do I want holiness like St Thomas Aquinas? Like Blessed Stanley Rother?
Three
“. . . and out of joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
To be able to go and sell everything that a person has and to do it joyfully, must mean that they not only located the treasure but they saw it and in some ways experienced it’s incredible, inestimable, otherworldly worth! Otherwise, you could not leave everything. You could maybe leave a few things, some things, even almost all you have, for a good, attractive, enticing treasure. But Blessed Stanley literally left everything.
He had found God. He had found Heaven. And because he experienced God and fell in love with this Heavenly treasure, Stanley was able to do what is normally humanly impossible.
Not only did he leave his family, friends, language, culture, the comforts of modern America, etc but he left his own safety and well-being. When he headed back to Guatemala after a brief visit to the States he knew that he would probably never see his family, his friends, or his homeland again. He had discovered that his name was on a death list of the Marxist death squads.
But because he had come to love God in the Guatemalan people he had chosen to serve, the hidden treasure he had found, he was able to say, and even more to show that, and I quote, “. The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger."
Have we found that hidden treasure that Blessed Stanley found?
Four
Just after midnight on July 28th, 1981, three men broke into Father Stanley Rother's church's rectory and shot him twice in the head after a brief struggle.
“And out of joy goes and sells all that he has. . .”
No doubt Stanley “sold” a lot of what he had during the pilgrimage of his life. That is, he let go of things that were not good for him, like his sins, his attachments, his thinking, and the mindset that at times may not have been Christ’s way of thinking. These are things that we all need to leave. We leave them in proportion to the depth of our relationship and friendship with Jesus. The deeper that is, the more we are able to let go, without even almost realizing it. We actually come to a point of not even noticing or worrying that our death is imminent.
That is why St Catherine of Siena has this to say of the death of the Saints. (and I am not quoting verbatim). “It appears to the eyes of humanity that these holy men and women die of old age, an illness, an accident or even by being killed, but actually they, the Saints die of joy.”
“. . . and out of joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field”
Five
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field . . .”
There can be only one treasure, one priority, one highest love in our life. The Kingdom, the Treasure is Jesus.
If we love God above all, then we will love others and love ourselves for the love of God which is the only unselfish and fulfilling way to live that actually results in getting everything we need in return.
So what steps do we need to take?
Choose God as the Supreme Good and Source of all that is good
Then order your life in a way that enables you to pursue Jesus in all things
Accept the loss of good things like relationships, professions, achievements, health etc.
Because, as St. John of the Cross writes: “The more he wants to give, the more he makes us desire - even to the point of leaving us empty in order to fill us with goods… Since the immense blessings of God can only enter and fit into an empty and solitary heart, the Lord wants you to be alone. For he truly loves you with the desire of being himself all your company. And You will have to strive carefully to be content only with his companionship, so you might discover in it every happiness. Even though the soul may be in heaven, it will not be happy if it does not conform its will to this. And we will be unhappy with God, even though he is always present with us, if our heart is not alone, but attached to something else.”
Blessed Stanley Rother, pray for us!