Please read the Scripture passage before the homily.
Jesus said to store up treasures in heaven. Heaven is not so much a place as we understand place. Rather heaven denotes permanence, a lastingness. Things on earth are perishable, not lasting. The things that pollute our planet with disappear eventually, even though some of these, like some plastics or weapons, may take generations, centuries, or millennia to disintegrate. Things of heaven, however, last forever.
Even 250,00-dollar tickets could not protect an immersible from imploding and killing all on board. We make last wills and testaments because our ownership of things does not last forever. Only our goodness, united with Christ, will last forever.
The ancients looked at the eye differently from the way we do. We consider that light enters the eye and the eye processes light so that we see things. The ancients, however, considered that the eye itself was light and that this was how the eye was able to see. When Jesus cured a blind person, then, it was as if Jesus were putting light into the person’s eye.
We still use somewhat this ancient concept of light in our lives. We speak of letting our light shine for all to see and so give glory to God. We speak of being light-hearted or in the darkness of depression. Those who have sunny dispositions seem to be happy people; those with gloomy dispositions are having bad days.
Let us build on the ancient concept and let light direct our lives. Spread light and not darkness. Live in the light. Abound in works of light. Put aside the works of darkness. Light is forever; darkness fades but light remains.