“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Treasured Attachments
The spiritual challenges of possessions and wealth are manifest, but those are only the most obvious of many attachments – the earthly things we treasure – that can keep us separated from God.
Like many believers I deeply want to know and act on God’s desires for me in the context of my very human life, however imperfect my discernment and execution may be. From the Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises, it is nonetheless always shocking to recall that the attachments that can divert me from God include preferences for “health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest.” It is not that these alternatives are bad or good in themselves, but I find it so easy to lose sight of the ultimate treasure in my attachments to health, prestige, privilege, long-life and all the rest.
—Allain Andry is the Charlotte regional coordinator for Contemplative Leaders in Action, an Ignatian spirituality and leadership program for young adults that is a program of the Office of Ignatian Spirituality. He is also a spiritual director at St. Peter Catholic Church in Charlotte, NC, the Jesuit parish in the Diocese of Charlotte.
Oh Lord, send your Holy Spirit
To open my eyes that I may see my many attachments,
To give me the wisdom to acknowledge the ones that pull me away from you, and
To grant me the courage to let them go.
Amen
—Allain Andry
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Ignatian spirituality reminds us that God pursues us in the routines of our home and work life, and in the hopes and fears of life's challenges. The founder of the Jesuits, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, created the Spiritual Exercises to deepen our relationship with Christ and to move our contemplation into service. May this prayer site anchor your day and strengthen your resolve to remember what truly matters.
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