Word: 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.”
I’d like to tell the story of a land which some Catholics ‘saw’ in joy and wanted to go live in that land. They left everything to come to this land, once given their opportunity to move to it. It sounds like Jesus’ parable today from Matthew 13, but this story is of the colony of Maryland. The Catholics who came on the first and then other journeys here—sought a land where they still would be able to practice their faith. A treasure-buried-in-a-field rare opportunity came in Lord Baltimore George Calvert and his two sons, Cecil and Leonard—to found a new English colony across the ocean—under the auspices of it having religious toleration. 1n 1634 on Annunciation Day, Maryland was founded with a Mass on St. Clement’s Island, in the Potomac River, in present St. Mary’s County. The Catholic faith and its treasures in Christ Jesus thus began on this land–even on the Church’s very day of the Word made Flesh. It’s an amazing story, and then of how we kept the Faith in Maryland, against much opposition.
Let’s go back to our main opposition to our Catholic founding in Maryland, as an English colony. From the 1500’s in England and its surrounding territories of Wales, Scotland and Ireland—it was intolerable to be a Catholic in England anymore. England’s rule had gone anti-Catholic. King Henry had split from Rome in 1534 by passing his “Act of Supremacy,” which declared him the Supreme Head of the Church of England. He spitefully and proudly did so because he wanted to openly commit adultery, but Pope Clement VII refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Henry wanted an heir, that Catherine was not giving him, so he felt justified in moving on from her—because, well, he was the king. He thought he could do anything he wanted to. And acted as such. He broke from Rome, from 15 centuries of Christ’ Authority to His apostles being respected—with King Henry eventually permitted himself a string of six wives, but much worse, creating what he said was a new ‘church of England.’ By 1535 he had killed Sir Thomas More, his Catholic chancellor, and the faithful Catholic Bishop John Fisher—and it began a persecution and killing spree to last for ages. Hundreds upon thousands who sought to keep the Catholic Faith in England were eliminated. A Church of England ruled.
Let us jump a hundred years from 1534 to 1634 to a permitted colony expedition to this land far north of England’s Virginia colony, across the Potomac River, to our side where we presently live as Maryland’s Catholics. Lord Baltimore Calvert and his sons were granted to start a Mary’s Land colony. It began and succeeded. Leonard Calvert was the first governor. Jesuits were the first clergy here, on mission to the New World. A Catholic brick chapel was built, adjacent the governor’s house in St. Mary’s City. Some prosperity came to the colony and region up the Potomac River, especially from tobacco. Spiritually, Catholics had open faith, with Masses being prayed from LaPlata down to harbor places near the Chesapeake Bay (where the Pax and Potomac flow out). Colonial life was quite challenging, but the people were enduring. The persons of other religion also practice their faith openly in Maryland.
Yet the anti-Catholic English persons from the Virginia colony encroached up to Maryland and the English crown rule became enforced ruthlessly by the 1700’s in Maryland. After 1704 no public Catholic masses nor church construction was permitted here—moving Catholic worshippers in Maryland to hide in disguised meeting houses or rough plantation chapels. Priests had to be inconspicuous. It became a clandestine activity to be Catholic. Whatever religious toleration was first allowed in the colony was now fiercely opposed, with voting and land rights controlled to marginalize a Catholic. The new capital in Annapolis was stacked with anti-Catholic leaders. That brick chapel in St. Mary’s City was dismantled. It was looking abysmal.
The direction that Maryland was heading towards in those years, more than 250 years ago, was decidedly anti-Catholic. Do you know this about our history? Do you value what happened religiously because of the American independence 250 years ago? You meet openly in a church now for Catholic Mass, but if things turned differently in history you’d have no public Catholic church of today in this eastern seaboard USA. English rule would have prevented the Catholic Church to exist—if it were that we Americans lost in 1776. The King’s Church of England would be your forced choice. You’d not have the Catholic Church begun by Jesus Christ, but a ‘church’ begun by a king of mortal sin. ‘Not good.
Here’s a little more history: In 1705 things took a stern turn against Catholicism in Maryland. For up to 1776, Catholics in Maryland had then to be secretly going to a house to its Mass. One of the more famous “Mass rooms” to be used for secret Catholic gathering for Eucharist was in Ellicott City at Doughoregan Manor (do RAY gin), off of present Manor lane. It was a home to the famous Carroll family, that of the eventual Catholic signer Charles Carroll to the Declaration of Independence. That house is not open to the public today, but another house church you can see is at St. Peter’s house chapel in Cordova Md. on the Eastern Shore. It is open and remains as a parish today—with a church built on to the side of the original (and restored) house meeting place.
In 2026, St. Peter’s and St. Paul parish (outside Easton) is one of 300 active Catholic parishes in Maryland, under three dioceses. Unlike 300 years ago, English Anglicanism is not the Catholic Church’s opponent anymore in the United States of America, but of secular humanism and communistic-style atheistic socialism on great rise. You and I are now getting challenged by these ungodly uprisings, and more. Today’s parable of Jesus basically asks of you: How important is your Catholic Faith in America or in Maryland today? Is it a treasure or pearl of worth to you? Are you aware of the attack on our spiritual life and religious freedoms and morals going on—to undermine all we value? How do you build up your church and parish for all her needs? And, how have you built up your family or marriage to be treasuring Jesus first and to keep in the treasure of the kingdom of Heaven? (Like the parables calls you to.) Have you kept your attention on the State of Maryland or our county and see what they keep proposing as ungodly, anti-Scriptural or anti-Church for legalized practice? Aren’t you uncomfortable with those pushes? For that last category, go to the Maryland Catholic Conference to be enlightened. Are you promoting vocations? Promoting Catholic living? Interested in converts coming aboard? Are you promoting retreats, as in parish ones for Catholic Faith development? Practicing Eucharistic Adoration or Confession? Are you online at some of the good Catholic work done there to further your faith along? If so, then you are a treasure and pearl seeker. Bravo. Or you may have other actions to so confirm your active Catholic Faith. If so, then Bravo.
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a found treasure buried in a field… or of a found pearl by a merchant…which its discoverer seeks to obtain its prize, but by needed actions having to be taken.’ In short, Jesus is saying that He and our Faith in Him is the great pearl and the field of worth with a treasure that we can be investing our main focus in life towards. Or not.
Post-lude: I finish with the focus back on Maryland. We treasure our Catholic Faith here. Yet we have to admit that we could have had none of it as Catholics today, not like it’s been for us in America for 250 years, if fortunes had turned in the 1770’s or later in the 1814 attack on Baltimore to decisively turn the English advantage of our lands. I just remind you: England had no interest in Catholic support, nor even practice in these lands. Yet it has become our freedom and opportunity to keep cherishing a Faith that they could not be stopped.
In the attack on Baltimore by the English in 1814, one of the targets of the city was to burn down the new Catholic cathedral and bishop’s house up on the hill from the harbor, on today’s North Charles Street. Thankfully, it did not happen. As announced and put in our bulletin and website and Flocknote, I am leading a pilgrimage next month to Assumption Basilica and Fort McHenry in Baltimore for thanksgiving for our good turn of events in history. We’ll complete the list of pilgrims by next Sunday to book the bus, museums and lunch reservation. The group will pray a representative thanks for the whole parish that day.
PILGRIMAGE IDEA
We had discussed this idea some many weeks ago among parish council members as a 2026 Anniversary 250 trip to Baltimore. I almost forgot about it or dismissed it—but we’ll try to see if there is interest.
ON THE SATURDAY FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION, AUG. 15. DOES ANYONE WANT TO TAKE A TRIP TO BALTIMORE TO SEE THE ASSUMPTION BASILICA, CELEBRATE MASS THERE, THEN GO TO THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER MUSEUM (LITTLE ITALY AREA), HAVE LUNCH IN LITTLE ITALY, AND THEN GO TO FORT MCHENRY?
RESPOND TO frjbarry@resurrectionadw.org or call and leave message at 301 288 4662. IF WE GET TAKERS, THEN WE CAN GO FORWARD. IT’S BEST TO GO BY RENTING A BUS (PRE-PAYING), AND THEN WE’LL HAVE THE TICKETS TO THE MUSEUMS TO BUY THERE, AND THE LUNCH WILL BE PAID AS ONE BILL. ALL PERSONS GOING WILL GET TO REVIEW ALL THESE ABOVE EXPECTED COSTS.
APPROXIMATE TIME: SAT. MORN TO SAT. 5:30 P.M.