Bank with eternity, not with earth

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THAT’S practically what can come to our mind when we consider Christ’s words to his disciples: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor moth consumes, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.” (Mt 6,19-20)

It’s like saying that we should invest in what would last for eternity, where God keeps it. This can only mean that we should put our heart into things with eternal value, prioritizing eternal rewards over earthly gain.

I suppose what all this means is that we should take care of our heart, of what is truly inside our heart, for what we keep there will determine what we will be in the end. It’s a matter of ordering our desires and intentions toward what cannot perish, and that can only be God.

We need to see to it that even as we immerse ourselves as deeply as possible in our earthly affairs, we do not lose our sense of heaven and eternity. In fact, the ideal is that as we go deeper in our temporal affairs, our sense of heaven and eternity should also become sharper.

This is always possible and doable as long as we are guided first of all by our faith rather than by our feelings and by our merely human estimation of things. Let’s always remember that it is our faith, our Christian faith, that gives the whole picture of our life—where we come from, where we are supposed to go, the purpose of our life here on earth, the true value of our mundane concerns, etc.

Let’s be theological in our thinking and reaction to the things of this world. For that, we, of course, would need some training. It should consist of always referring things to God, whatever they may be—good or bad, a success or a failure, a victory or a defeat, etc. We need to feel the urge to do so.

In short, we have to keep our spiritual and supernatural bearing which should involve a certain detachment from the things of the world. For this detachment to be lived, we should assume a certain spirit of gamesmanship or sportsmanship, since the effectiveness of our earthly affairs is not so much in whether we win or succeed in them as in whether we manage to refer them to God whatever the outcome.

We try to do our best to win in whatever endeavor we do, but just the same, whether we win or lose we remain happy and assured that we are all friends, brothers and sisters, and children of God.

The detachment involved here can be of the heroic type as illustrated in the gospel. “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble,” Christ said, “cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.” (Mt 18,8-9)

Though these words should not be taken too literally, we have to understand that we have to be ready to take extraordinary means if only to stay the course in our earthly activities.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com