We’re all familiar with the old saying, “You can’t take it with you.”  That is essentially what Jesus is telling his disciples, and us, in today’s gospel reading.  We all know that, of course, just as the people who were listening to Jesus knew it as well.  But all of us, then and now, sometimes need a reminder of that truth, especially in this day and age when materialism has truly become the underlying principle of modern society.

 We can’t take it with us – the houses, cars, furniture, clothes, bank accounts, etc.  Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t have legitimate material needs: food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and so forth.  And it doesn’t mean that we ought not to own property, work to provide for our families, save money for our children’s education and our retirement, and so forth.  It does mean that we must not allow materialism to become the guiding principle of our lives.  It does mean that we must not let the accumulation of stuff become something that is more important to us than being persons who love, love God and love our neighbor.

 Because as much as we can’t take those material goods with us when we pass from this life to the next, there is something we can, and do, take with us when we go to God.

 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,” the Lord says, “where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.  But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroy, nor thieves break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.” (Matthew 6: 19-21)

 What are these things that we can take with us?  What are these treasures that we may store up in heaven?

 St. Alphonsus Liguori writes, “In Scripture, death is called the ‘day of calamity’ (Dt 32: 35).  This is because, on the day we die, we shall lose all our earthly possessions – honors, riches, pleasures.  Saint Ambrose says that we cannot take them into eternity.  But our acts of virtue, the good things we have done during life, will accompany us into eternity.”

 Virtuous deeds, good things that we do, go with us to heaven.  They are the treasures that Jesus tells us we may store up there.

 The Catechism (paragraph 2010) tells us, “Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life.  Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God’s wisdom.  These graces and goods are the object of Christian prayer.  Prayer attends to the grace we need for meritorious actions.”

 The Church’s consistent teaching on performing meritorious work has often been a source of confusion for some.  It is a misinterpretation of what the Church teaches to say that we believe that we save ourselves through our works, as though they are somehow disconnected from Christ and from His grace.

 Rather, we understand that we do, in our works, merit the grace needed for sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for eternal life, precisely because those works are done by us as members of the Body of Christ, as branches of the vine.  It is God Himself, the indwelling of the Trinity in our hearts, who is ultimately responsible for the good works.  The merit in them is ultimately the merit of Christ Himself.

But God has chosen, in His goodness, to make us collaborators with Him.  He gives us the grace (called an “actual” grace, in theological terms) to perform a meritorious action.  We then choose to cooperate and do the work or not.  So the meritorious work is attributable primarily to God, and secondarily to ourselves.  But when we cooperate with that grace and do the work, then we do, in fact, merit the reward for it – not because God owes it to us, but because He has told us He will give us the reward.

Here’s what I want you to take away from this:

1)    being rich in what matters to God means performing meritorious works.

2)    Meritorious works include not just things that we would deem heroic -- saving a baby from a burning building, for example -- but are mostly things that we would deem ordinary and mundane: helping someone in need; listening to a friend’s problems when you really don’t feel like it; biting your tongue and not making the sharp comment to your spouse, mother, father, child, friend, neighbor, co-worker, even if they deserve it, especially if they deserve it; visiting someone who is sick; attending Mass; receiving the sacraments; prayer.

3)    Those works are meritorious because when you do them, you are responding to a prompting of grace.  You are cooperating with God in the sanctification of yourself and of others.

4)    Appreciate the supernatural quality of your life.  We seem, in the modern world, to be so fascinated by the supernatural in the sense of TV shows like “Ghost Whisperer” and “Dead Zone” and books and movies like those about Harry Potter.  Yet, we fail to recognize the supernatural (above nature) active and present in our own day-to-day lives.  We fail to recognize God’s grace, active and working in our own lives and in the lives of those around us.