June 20, 2003
Georgia International Convention Center
Dear Friends in Christ,
Though every word that came forth from the mouth of our Lord is a treasure in and of itself, those we have heard in the Gospel of this Mass must be among the most beautiful and concise words of wisdom ever expressed in language, especially when He says:
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.
It is not an easy lesson to learn, that lesson which teaches us we were not made for this world, but for the world to come.
The world is full of beauty - beauty that we can see and hear and touch - music, art, food and drink, love and companionship. All of these were given to us by God as a part of Creation - the creation of the world and the creation of the human being. But we are still in the world, and when man brought sin into the world, he also brought the reality that these beautiful things cannot withstand two things: time and evil - or as our Lord pictures them, decay and thieves. For everything beautiful is subject to time - nothing we make will last forever; and everything beautiful is subject to evil - someone can steal it away from us.
The only beautiful, precious thing, that the Lord exempts from this hard lesson of impermanence, this lesson of the passing of all things, is the thing He says we can find with our hearts. And what we find with our hearts is not an object, a possession, a passing pleasure, or anything that can be confined to a limited state of being. What we find with our hearts, is love - and love comes from God, and is beyond the power of time, beyond the power of evil. On earth, only humans love - for the measure of love is sacrifice, and only humans are capable of self-sacrifice - only humans are capable of rising above nature - only humans can willingly die for one another.
It is the treasure of love, which the heart must find if it is to be happy. And basically, we find authentic love in two places.
First, because it is natural for us to know it and to look for it there, we find love in other people - not in how much we take from other people, but in how much we give to other people. For authentic love, the love that comes from God to us, has nothing to do with taking, but everything to do with giving and receiving.
You who have extended your energies in volunteering to work at this Eucharistic Festival, are engaged in such an activity of love. You are giving your time, your energy, your talents - and you will be receiving, tomorrow, the joy that comes when we see the happiness of those for whom we make sacrifices. That is true love - that is where your hearts have turned - and that is the first place where, in this experience, you will find your treasure.
But there is a higher place to find love - and the higher place is where love comes from to begin with - the heart of God, where all treasures are found. For when we love one another, we are but imitating, imperfectly, the Perfect Love which was with God from the beginning - the Love that, when mankind became desperate for its grace, found expression in the One we have come to serve - the Lord Jesus Christ. In the miracle of His conception, His birth, His life, we see and hear and touch the Love which neither time can decay nor thieves steal away - and in the Eucharist He has given us, His Body and Blood to be with us on earth, as long as earth shall last, we make that Perfect Love a part of ourselves.
That is where your hearts, and the hearts of those you will greet tomorrow - that is where all our hearts find true treasure, and the truest love - in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. And our hearts, though many and individual, will "leap with a single joy," to serve the Lord, on this occasion of our 8th Annual Eucharistic Congress.
And so, dear friends, even though I, and all who have worked to organize this event, are most grateful to you for your generous gift of time and labor, it is still more appropriate that we use this Mass, not to thank ourselves, but to thank God, who has given us Christ - thank Him for making such love possible, for teaching us to know the treasure of our own hearts, and for enabling us, if only in an imperfect way - enabling us to become closer to and more like, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
May God's Holy Spirit, and His ever-watchful, ever-protecting Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, watch over you this night, and tomorrow, and assist you in safely carrying out your work - for yourselves, and for those who will then be receiving the gift of your work, and your love.
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