VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Don’t be fooled by worldly treasures that seduce people but leave them tired, loveless and empty, Pope Francis said.
Seek out and gather divine treasures like “love, charity, service, patience, goodness and tenderness,” he said June 21 during the homily at morning Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives. In his own version of the common saying, “You can’t take it with you” when you die, the pope said, “I’ve never seen a moving truck following behind a funeral procession. Never.”
While material possessions will remain here on earth, there are treasures that “we can bring with us” to heaven, he said. However, they are not the things “that you have saved up for yourself, but rather those you have given to others,” which is the gift and presence of “Jesus Christ in us,” the pope said.
In his homily, the pope commented on the day’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, which says not to store up treasures on earth, “but store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”
