As Jesus points out in today’s Gospel (Matt 6:19-23), a person’s treasure reveals a great deal about his or her interior state. My treasure gives me security and comfort; it is what I look to when times are lean and tough. Treasure is also what I prize for its material or personal value, such as a precious family heirloom.
To “store up treasures in heaven” as Jesus urges us might mean several things. On the one hand, it could mean to practice good deeds and works of charity here on earth and to grow in virtue, since these are things which we can carry with us, unlike material possessions, wealth, or worldly influence. Yet there is also a sense in which God himself ought to be our treasure. Many of the great saints and mystics display a single-hearted desire to be with God; he alone is the treasure that their heart seeks. They can say with the Psalmist, “In God alone is my soul at rest” (62:1).
Today, we can search our own hearts and examine our own desire to be with God, and we can ask him for the grace to love and cherish him as our true and only treasure.