Accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven: Mary and the treasures of the heart

**Quote:***”Ubi enim est thesaurus tuus, ibi est et cor tuum.” (Wherever your treasure is, there also is your heart.) – Mt 6,21***Text:**The instruction from Jesus on the two types of treasures in Mt 6:19-21 is among the most insightful from the Sermon on the Mount. The apparent simplicity of the distinction—do not amass riches on earth, amass them in heaven—masks a deep analysis of human heart dynamics and its relationship to what it values. The Greek word *thesauros* refers to both a chest or the precious thing stored within it. And the phrase concluding the argument reveals that at stake is not financial management but the fundamental orientation of the person: where the heart places its love, there lies its deepest identity.The distinction between earthly and heavenly treasures is not a dualism between matter and spirit in the Platonic sense, as if material were inherently bad. Christian tradition consistently rejected such dualism: matter is good (Gn 1:31), the body will be resurrected, and the Eucharist is both bread and wine. What Jesus contrasts is not matter versus spirit but impermanent versus permanent, corruptible versus incorruptible. Earthly treasures are those that rust (*brosis*), moth (*tinea*) and thief (*kleptes*) can destroy. Heavenly treasures are those no temporal force can take away—love, justice, mercy building an imperishable reality.**I. The Logic of the Two Treasures:**In Jewish tradition from which Jesus drew, “to make treasures in heaven” was a common expression for acts of mercy and justice whose fruits endure eternity. The Talmud records this phrase in several places. Church Fathers adopted it. Alms given to the poor, reconciliation with a brother, love for an enemy—these actions build a “heavenly treasure” not because God keeps a financial ledger, but because authentic love produces a reality that does not pass away. Love is the only “treasure” that death cannot destroy. It is the sole good that becomes richer as it is shared more.The “fundamental decision” (or *Grundentscheidung*) to which the Gospel refers—orienting one’s heart towards the heavenly treasure—was developed by contemporary moral theology as a central concept of Christian ethics. This fundamental choice is not an isolated act but the general direction of freedom: what the heart chooses as the supreme good, the ultimate reference point. Jesus does not call for a superficial behavioral adjustment; he invites metanoia—a reorientation of the heart that transforms one’s values. This reorientation, only possible through grace, is true conversion.The parable of the “good and bad eye” that follows (Mt 6:22-23) fits within this same context. The “bad eye” (*ophthalmos poneros*) was a proverbial expression for greed. The “good eye” (*ophthalmos haplous*) referred to generosity and simplicity. Two ways of “seeing” reality: with an eye shaped by possession (distorting everything in terms of having) or with an eye shaped by giving (seeing the world clearly through love). The fundamental orientation of one’s heart—the “treasure”—determines the “eye” through which one sees everything else.**II. Mary, Who “Kept All Things in Her Heart”**

Luke describes Mary’s interior life with the expression “she kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19. Cf. 2:51). This expression is precisely the language of “treasure”: Mary stored in her heart not material wealth, nor prestige, nor power, but God’s Word, the events of Christ’s mystery that she contemplated and guarded. Mary’s heart was literally a “heavenly treasure”: filled with the presence of the Son of God whom she carried, cared for, and accompanied to Calvary and Resurrection.

Devotion to the “Immaculate Heart of Mary”, celebrated on August 22nd, has its theological foundation in this Lucan image. Mary’s heart is not a sentimental symbol: it is a symbol of her fundamental freedom, of her total orientation towards God. That her heart be “immaculate” does not mean she never suffered; the prophecy of Simeon about the sword contradicts that. It means she never deviated from her fundamental orientation towards God: even in the pain of Calvary, the “treasure” in Mary’s heart remained in heaven, in the Son whom the Cross could not separate from the Father.

Contemplating Mary’s heart as a model of the “heavenly treasure” has a concrete pedagogical value: it shows that accumulating heavenly treasures is not a separate activity from daily life. Mary accumulated her treasure in Nazareth, in domestic service, in educating Jesus, in being present with Elizabeth, during thirty years of hidden life. The heavenly treasure does not require extraordinary contexts; it requires ordinary attention and love transfigured by grace. It is the treasure of daily faithfulness, invisible to human eyes but visible to the Father who “sees in secret”.

III. The “Sound Eye” and Spiritual Discernment

The connection between the “sound eye” of Mt 6:22-23 and the mystical tradition of “cleansing the heart” is explicit in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). A heart oriented towards heavenly treasure develops an “eye” that perceives reality with a clarity unattainable by a heart focused on earthly treasures. Contemplation purifies the gaze. Love rectifies vision. This purification is not a human achievement but the fruit of grace that transforms the heart from within.

Master Eckhart, John Tauler, and the mystical school of the Rhine in the 14th century developed at length this theme of “purified vision” as a result of union with God. The “eye of the heartHerzensauge) that sees God in creatures and creatures in God is the “sound eye” described by Matthew 6:22: the spiritual faculty born from a fundamental orientation towards heavenly treasure. This mystical tradition recovered a deep intuition of the Sermon on the Mount: that one’s perception of the world depends on what the heart chooses as its treasure.

Mary is the model of the “cleansing of the gaze” corresponding to the “sound eye.” Her gaze upon the Son, described in the Gospels as profound attention and constant meditation, is the gaze of the heart that has accumulated the right treasure. She did not see Jesus merely as a biological son. She saw Him as the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world. This depth of gaze sprang from years of contemplation and prayer: from a life entirely oriented towards the “treasure” that the angel had announced. Her “sound eye” was the fruit of her fundamental option for God.IV. Where is the heart: the proof of lifeThe final phrase, “Wherever your treasure is, there will your heart be,” is one of the most psychologically insightful in the entire Gospel. It reveals that the heart does not freely choose where it attaches itself; it follows the treasure. Whoever has invested years of energy and love into a project, a relationship, an ideal, that is their “treasure,” and the heart dwells within it. Therefore, Christian conversion is not primarily an act of will (“I decide to love God above all else”), but a transformation of the heart that involves changing what one invests with love.Christian spiritual pedagogy understood this logic. Ignatius of Loyola does not ask the beginner of the Exercises to “love God above all else” as a powerless act of will, but to invest time and attention in prayer, lectio divina, service to the poor, and for the heart, following the treasure invested, gradually reorient itself. Conversion is a process of “reattachment”: the heart learns to love God when it begins to invest in the relationship with God. Grace transforms the heart. But freedom invests the treasure.Mary is the model of the person whose heart was completely reoriented towards the celestial treasure. Not because she “decided” to be so in a singular act of will, but because her entire life, from the Annunciation to Pentecost, was a process of growing investment of the heart in God. The “fiat” was not a single act: it was the fruit of a heart that, over the years, had accumulated its treasure where rust and moth do not reach, where thieves do not enter. And this heart, which “kept in her heart” (Luke 2:19) the most precious treasure, is the model for every disciple who heard the Sermon on the Mount and responded with their entire life.