The WORD in Other Words by Fr Eusebio Manangbao SVD (Philippines)
Friday 11th Week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 11:18, 21-30, Mt 6:19-23
“The lamp of the body is the eye,” Jesus tells us. As a lamp is to a room, so the eye is to the body. He is referring here to spiritual eyes which are the lamps of our souls.
We all have spiritual eyes. If they are good, we see the spiritual world for what it is. Otherwise, we see it as distorted and false.
For example, if we see the world with greed, we try to possess as much treasure here on earth as we possibly can. Yet Jesus said that we should store up “treasures in heaven, where thieves cannot steal and moths cannot destroy.” When people look at earthly treasure with greed, they fall in love and give their hearts away. When the saints do so, their only thought is, “How can I use this to further the Kingdom of God?” They see clearly.
Consider humility. St. Paul had humility. He boasts about how many times he has failed, how many times he has been scourged, how many times he has been shipwrecked. Some people would say, “I wouldn‘t want to be like him.” A humble Christian, who remembers that our Lord died on a Cross, hears all this and says, “Wow, God must really be with this man.”
It matters what spiritual eyes are set into. If greed is causing us to sin, let us pluck it out, not literally of course, but by refocusing our vision on what really and essentially matters. If humility helps us to see clearly, let us cultivate it until we can look at the world and see God.
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