Unfortunately, the rumors are true, I did get to spend the night in the hospital, but, believe it or not, it helped me to be able to prepare my homily today.

Because, when I was in the ER, since there were no rooms available for me, I was put in the hallway, and in the hallway I got to see everything and everyone who came in.

And, as a result, it occurred to me, as our readings today remind, that all those people who were coming in had only one concern, their focus was not on what they owned, but rather, what they needed, and that was the restoration of their health. For, what they sought was something that could never be bought or sold, what they sought was something infinitely more expensive than the world itself.

That is why today’s three readings can all be summarized in what Jesus says in our Gospel today: “one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

And while, to us, that may sound strange, because our entire lives are made up of possessions, things we have, things we need and things we want, none of that matters when our lives are in danger, none of that matters when we are forced to look at our lives differently. For, then we must look towards the treasures we have stored up in Heaven, just as the saints often did.

Because the point is not the possession, nor the fact that we own it, rather, it is something more. It is a warning against what we see in commercials constantly, being so taken up by what we have that our possessions begin to possess us. That is why, as St. Paul put it, in our second reading, we are to, instead: “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.”

In fact, I once heard someone make a wise recommendation, he said we should go through our things and thank God for every single one of them and then offer them back to Him so that we might look at them in a new way, and see in them, from the smallest tube of toothpaste to the TV we watch, to the computer we use, to our cell phone or GPS a blessing and an opportunity to give God the thanks He is due.

Because, every single day God gives us so much to be thankful for, He gives us so much of what we need that, in our desire for looking for what we don’t need, we sometimes miss what is placed before us. Jesus put it well, He said we must be rich in what matters to God.

And, by doing so, we will come see that the greatest treasures in life are, indeed, those for which there is no price tag, for those which cannot be held in our hands but, rather, stored in our hearts. In fact, I always tell married couples that no matter the great gifts they have been given, in time they will break, stop working, rust, rip or deteriorate, but the gift they leave with from this altar, the great gift of the Eucharist, the great gift of God Himself.

The same gift He gives all of us all each time we come to Mass, the same gift that allows us to see the true worth of what we own, overshadowed, by the true worth of what we have, so that those little treasures we have in this world become merely a means to store up true treasure in Heaven making us incredibly rich in what truly and only matters, those things that, indeed, matter to God.