In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls us fools if we prioritize storing up earthly treasures for ourselves but are “not rich in what matters to God.” Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus reiterates this teaching when he said: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. 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.”
Recall also the word of the Lord that came to the Prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you” (1:5). In other words, God has a purpose for all of us; however, the purpose of our life is not to accumulate earthly materials. Rather, as the Baltimore Catechism tells us, God created us to know, love, and serve Him. Through Baptism, “we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission” (CCC 1213). Saint Paul, in this letter to the Ephesians, teaches us that “we are [God’s] handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”
These good works are models after the classic characterization of our Lord Jesus Christ that he is priest, prophet, and king (Bishop Robert Barron, 2/14/2014). Bishop Robert Barron reflected that “As priest, [Jesus] sanctifies, that is to say, he reestablishes the lost link between divinity and humanity; as prophet, he speaks and embodies the divine truth; and as king, he leads us on the right path, giving guidance to the human project. You might say that, as priest, he is the life; as prophet, he is the truth; and as king he is the way” (id). Thus, as the baptized, we were “anointed with oil, just as, in the Old Testament, priests, prophets, and kings were anointed upon assumption of their offices.”
As baptized priests, when we cultivate our friendship with Christ, through our intense devotion to prayer, the sacraments, and the Mass, we “embody the harmony that God wants between himself and [us] those made in this image and likeness.” We are then “sent out into families, communities, places of work. . . etc. . . to carry out the [harmony we] found like a holy contagion.” As baptized prophets, we “exercise [our] brains by studying philosophy, theology, spirituality, church history, and the lives of the saints,” and “having been illuminated, [we] are then sent out into [the world] as beacons of light.” Finally, as baptized kings, we use our charisms to direct those in our families, communities, etc., toward God, following in the footsteps of people like Blessed Fulton Sheen, Dr. Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, or Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs, whose memorial we celebrate today.
“Isaac Jogues and his companions were the first martyrs of the North American continent officially recognized by the Church” (Franciscan Media, 10/19/2026). They were Jesuit missionaries who gave their lives to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Hurons, composing catechisms and a dictionary in Huron, and saw thousands of children and catechumens baptized and converted to the Catholic faith. This is one example of how we can store up treasures in heaven and be rich in what matters to God. Through our baptism, we surrender our lives to God, encounter our Lord Jesus Christ and enter into a personal relationship, and, guided by the Holy Spirit, go forth to glorify the Lord by our lives through faithful acts of service for the people of God, through the mission of the Catholic Church.
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