FORT KNOX

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth
where rust and moth consume,
and thieves break through and steal.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth
can consume, and where thieves cannot
break through, and steal."

I know, God, that "Where your treasure is,
there also is your heart."
Please be my treasure.

Dear God, help me to understand these words,
and to take them to my heart.

I live in the material world. Help me
to focus on the eternal spiritual world,
Your world, the world to come.

How much money, how much gold,
do I really need?

I have not taken the heroic vow of poverty,
but have I nevertheless listened sufficiently
to the injunctions of Your gospel messages?

Do I understand what it is to be poor
in spirit? Have I done enough for the poor and starving, the ragged and malnourished
and disenfranchised? The sick and maimed
and discouraged and hopeless?

Help me, Jesus, to open my eyes.

Let me care more for the quality of my prayer life than the quality of my worldly goods, and let me care seriously and actively
for the lives of the least fortunate
in the world.

Let me not blind myself, or turn away
from the abject misery in which many people are living, adults, children and infants,
in the tin shacks and slums of the world.

Help me become fully aware of the depth
and extent of malnutrition, hopelessness
and spirit-crushing poverty around the globe.

Help me to do my share to alleviate
the misery of the poorest of the poor,
who are always close to Your heart.
Make them close to mine as well.
Let me not turn away from their
desperate plight.

Let me think daily of those in poverty,
of the millions of children and families
who go to their beds hungry and malnourished
each night. Guide me to realize what I can do
to alleviate, in any small way, the suffering of these unfortunate people who, through no fault of their own, cannot adequately feed their families.

Help me, Jesus, to be generous.

Let me put the salvation of my immortal soul
above the things of this world, which will no longer be mine on the day I die, and which will pass away entirely when You return
in wrath and glory on Judgment Day.

Help me, Jesus, to open my heart.

All this I pray to You my Guide, my God,
my Slavation and my only Glorious Redeemer.

Amen

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