3rd Sunday of Matthew--Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew (6:22-33)

The Lord said: "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. but if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' for the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well."

From the Commentary of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 20

vs. 22: The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness.

He leads his discourse to the things which are more within the reach of our senses. I mean, since he had spoken of the mind as enslaved and brought into captivity, and there were not many who could easily understand what he meant, he transfers the lesson to outward things which lie before people's eyes, that by these images the other concepts also might reach their understanding. Thus, "If you do not know," he says, "what it means to be injured in mind, learn it from the things of the body; for just what the eye is to the body, so the mind is to the soul." So, just as you would not choose to wear gold, and to be clad in silken garments, if your eyes would at the same time be put out, but rather you account their sound health more desirable than all such superfluous show (for, if you should lose this health or waste it, all your life besides that will do you no good: for just as when the eyes are blinded, most of the energy of the other members is gone, since their light is quenched; so also when the mind is depraved, your life will be filled with countless evils): and so just as this is our aim in the body, namely to keep the eye sound, so also the mind in the soul. but if we mutilate this, which ought to give light to the rest, by what means are we to see clearly any more? For as he that destroys the fountain, dries up also the river, so he who has quenched the understanding has confounded all his activities in this life. Therefore he says, "If the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?"

For when the pilot is drowned, and the candle is put out, and the general is taken prisoner; what sort of hope will there be, after that, for those that are under command?

Thus then, he omits now to speak of the plots to which wealth gives occasion, the strifes, the suits (these indeed he had signified above, when he said, "The adversary shall deliver you to the judge, and the judge to the officer"); and sets down what is more grievous than all these, as sure to occur, and so he withdraws us from the wicked desire. For to inhabit the prison is not nearly so grievous as for the mind to be enslaved by this disease; and going to prison may not necessarily happen, but the enslavemnt of the mind is connected as an immediate consequent with the desire of riches. And this is why he puts it after the first, as being a more grievous things, and sure to happen.

For God, he says, gave us understanding, that we might chase away all ignorance, and have the right judgment of things, and that using this as a kind of weapon and light against all that is grievous or hurtful, we might remain in safety. But we betray the gift for the sake of superfluous and useless things.

For what is the use of soldiers arrayed in gold, when the general is dragged along a captive? What is the profit of a ship beautifully equipped, when the pilot is sunk beneath the waves? What is the advantage of a well-proportioned body, when the sight of the eyes is stricken out? So then, just as if someone should make the physician sick (who should be in good health, that he may end our diseases), and then tell him to lie on a silver couch, and in a chamber of gold, this will not help the sick persons at all; even so, if you corrupt the mind which has power to put down our passions, even if you set it by a treasure, so far from doing it any good, you have inflicted the very greatest loss, and have harmed your whole soul.

Do you see how by those very things through which men everywhere bring about wickedness, even by these things most of all Christ deters them from it, and brings them back to virtue? "What is your intent in desiring riches?" he says; "Is it not that you may enjoy pleasure and luxury? Why now, this is the very things above all other things that you will fail to obtain by it, but rather you will obtain the exact opposite." For if, when our eyes are stricken out, we do not perceive anything pleasant, because of such a calamity; much more will this be our case in the perversion and maiming of the mind.