6/20/2014 – Friday of 11th week in ordinary time – Matthew 6:19-23

      Today, we hear a Gospel that is particularly relevant to a lot that we are experiencing as Catholics in the world today.   Jesus warns us not to store up our treasure here on earth, where moths and decay can destroy and consume those treasures.  Instead, we are to store up our treasures in heaven.  We can be so intent as to want to achieve worldly success and worldly treasures, that the treasures that are important to our faith can be ignored and shunned in the process.

      This Sunday, on June 22, we will celebrate the feast day of the Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, men who were martyrs for the faith in England in the 16^th century.  Thomas More was a very spiritual and religious man, a lawyer and the chancellor of England under King Henry VIII.  More’s conscience and keen sense of morality kept him from approving of the king’s divorce to Queen Catherine of Aragon, of his remarriage to Anne Boleyn, and of the establishment of the Church of England.  More refused to personally break from his Catholic faith and from denying the pope as the head of the Church. John Fisher, a Cardinal and Bishop of Rochester in England, also refused to recognize these same matters as Thomas More.  Both of them were beheaded in London in 1535. Both of them were canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1935, 400 years after their deaths.  If Thomas More and John Fisher had seen their treasure in earthly things, their decisions and the way they lived their lives would have been very different.  We think about how the values of this world can lure us away from we need to be in issues of faith.  It is something we face today, especially in the way our society is becoming more secular and anti-religious.   Let us pray today for the intercessions of St John Fisher and St Thomas More to help us and guide on to the treasures and values of our faith.