I have to admit I was totally at a loss with the first reading. It's hard to read the names, let alone get the meaning. I think it can be done, but I opted out because I was moved by the Gospel. And that's totally okay!
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” What a beautiful – and challenging – word we have today from the Gospel. We could use this as an occasion to talk about stewardship, and that might be legitimate. But I think that Jesus is getting at something a bit different here. The clue to what he’s getting at, I think, is the little saying that comes right after this.
“If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light;
but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.”
My mother always says that “the eye is the window to the soul.” That’s kind of what this saying is about. What is it that we are letting into our souls through the windows of our eyes? There is an ancient church virtue of the “custody of the eye.” What we let ourselves see has a direct result on what happens in our spiritual life. If we find that our lives are off track, that we aren’t praying well, that our relationships are tense at best, well, maybe we’re seeing the wrong stuff. Television, movies, the internet – all of these provide occasions of sin for all of us.
And Jesus is right, when we allow our eyes to be bad, our whole body – even our soul – can be in darkness. If we really treasure our spiritual lives, then our eyes and our hearts will find that they are on things that are worthy of being seen and experienced. So maybe this summer is an occasion for a little less TV, better chosen movies, and some serious time with a good book, or perhaps, the Good Book! For where your treasure is, there your heart, and your eye, and your mind, and your soul, will be also.
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