Gospel Reading : Matthew 6:19-23
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
What do the Fathers say?
St AUGUSTINE. For if any does a work with the mind of gaining thereby an earthly good, how will his heart be pure while it is thus walking on earth? For any thing that is mingled with an inferior nature is polluted thereby, even though that inferior thing be pure in itself. Thus gold is alloyed when mixed with pure silver; and in like manner our mind is defiled by love of earthly things, even though earth is in itself pure.
St John CHRYSOSTOM. Saying, Lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth, He adds, where rust and moth destroy, in order to show the insecurity of that treasure that is here, and the advantage of that which is in Heaven, both in terms of the place, and from those things which harm. As though He had said; Why do you fear that your wealth shall be consumed, if you give alms?
Rather give alms, and they shall increase, for those treasures that are in Heaven shall be added to them, which treasures perish if ye do not give alms. He said not, You leave them to others, for that is pleasant to men.
PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. A threefold destruction awaits all the goods of this life. They either decay and are eaten of moths as is cloth; or are consumed by their master’s luxurious living; or are plundered by strangers, either by violence, or pilfering, or false accusation, or some other unjust doing.
For all may be called thieves who hasten by any unlawful means to make other men’s goods their own.
But you will say, Do all who have these things, lose them? I would answer by the way, that if all do not, yet many do.
But by ill-hoarded wealth, you have lost spiritually if not actually, because it does not profit your salvation.
Which then is better? To place it on earth where its security is doubtful, or in Heaven where it will certainly be preserved? What folly it is to leave it in this place from whence you must soon depart, and not to send it before you to where you are to go?
St JEROME. This must be understood not only of money, but of all our possessions. The god of a glutton is his belly; of a lover his lust; and so every man serves that to which he is in bondage; and has his heart there where his treasure is.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
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