Liturgical day: Friday 11th in Ordinary Time
Saints
Gospel text (Mt 6,19-23): Jesus said to his disciples: «Do not store up treasure for yourself here on earth where moth and rust destroy it, and where thieves can steal it. Store up treasure for yourself with God, where no moth or rust can destroy nor thief come and steal it. For where your treasure is, there also your heart will be.
»The lamp of the body is the eye; if your eyes are sound, your whole body will be in the light. If your eyes are diseased your whole body will be in darkness. Then, if your light has become darkness, how dark will be the darkest part of you!
«Store up treasure for yourself with God, where no moth or rust can destroy nor thief come and steal it»
Fr. Lluís RAVENTÓS i Artés
(Tarragona, Spain)
Today, the Lord tells us that «the lamp of the body is the eye» (Mt 6:22). St. Thomas claims that when speaking of the eye Jesus refers to man's intentions. When our intention is right, luminous, pointing to God, all our actions are bright, resplendent; but when your intention becomes darkness. how dark will be the darkest part of us! (cf. Mt 6:23).
If we are malicious or wicked, our intention may not be straight, but more often than not this is just because we are lacking some good sense. We live as if we would have been born to pile up riches and we could think of nothing else. To make money, to buy, to possess, to have. We want others to admire us, or perhaps to envy us. We deceive one another, we suffer, we worry and pain and cannot find the desired happiness. But Jesus makes us another proposal: «Store up treasure for yourself with God, where no moth or rust can destroy nor thief come and steal it» (Mt 6:20). Heaven is the barn where good actions are stored, and this sure is a forever lasting treasure.
Let us be sincere and honest with ourselves: where are our efforts directed to, which are our endeavours? True, good Christians must honestly study and labour to make a living, to raise a family, to insure their future and a peaceful life when old, and they must also work with an aim to help the others … All this is, indeed, a characteristic of a good Christian. But, if what you are looking for, is to have more and more all the time, placing your heart in those riches, forgetting any good action, drawing a blank upon the fact we are here just provisionally, that our life is just a passing shadow, is it not true —then— that our eye is in darkness, «how dark will be the darkest part of you!» (Mt 6:23).