me my good works, and I shall be able to say with confidence: Oh, God be praised! how much good I have done! Your riches and pleasures shall abandon you; mine shall accompany me to heaven, where I shall enjoy them forever. Therefore I shall be steadfast in my resolution; I shall now labor to purify my conscience and keep it always free from sin, and serve God with cheerful heart during my life, that I may die with a cheerful, quiet heart. Amen.
Another introduction to the same sermon for Ash Wednesday.
Text.
Thesaurizate vobis thesauros in cælo.—Matt. vi. 20.
“Lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven.”
Introduction.
Human life consists in care, labor, trouble, and work. But how much care is useless? how much labor in vain? how much work utterly unprofitable, that brings in nothing or next to nothing? This is what Our Lord complains of in to-day’s Gospel. Many, He says, fast and macerate their bodies; but why? To gain an empty name before men. Be not so foolish! “When you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad; for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward,”[1] and they need not expect anything from Me. Many busy themselves amassing wealth and riches; but what kind of riches? Those that can be consumed by moths and stolen by thieves. Be not so foolish! “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal;” employ your labor to more profit: “but lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.”[2] Try to gain treasures that will be useful to you in eternal life, so that you may always rejoice in the possession of them. This, my dear brethren, is the true consolation of the just Christian in this life, to know that his conscience gives testimony that he is amassing rich treasures of good works and on his death-bed to think back, when his conscience will remind him that he can enjoy those
- ↑ Cura autem jejunatis, nolite fieri sicut hypocritæ, tristes: exterminant enim facies suas, ut appareant hominibus jejunantes. Amen dico vobis, quia receperunt mercedem suam.—Matt. vi. 16.
- ↑ Nolite thesaurizare vobis thesauros in terra, ubi ærugo et tinea demolitur, et ubi fures effodiunt et furantur. Thesaurizate autem vobis thesauros in cœlo, ubi neque ærugo neque tinea demolitur, et ubi fures non effodiunt, nec furantur.—Ibid. 19, 20.
