St Benedict's liturgical Code: On Benedictine prayer (Feb 25 or 26/June 27/Oct 27)

Sodoma, Life of St Benedict, 1505
St Benedict frees a monk

And today, the last in this series of posts on St Benedict's liturgical code, on reverence in prayer.

Caput XX: De Reverentia Orationis

Si cum hominibus potentibus volumus aliqua suggerere, non praesumimus nisi cum humilitate et reverentia; quanto magis Domino Deo universorum cum onini humilitate et puritatis devotione supplicandum est. Et non in multiloquio, sed in puritate cordis et com-punctione lacrimarum nos exaudiri sciamus. Et ideo brevis debet esse et pura oratio, nisi forte ex affectu inspirationis divinae gratiae protendatur. In conventu tamen omnino brevietur oratio, et facto signo a priore omnes pariter surgant.

Chapter 20: Of Reverence in Prayer

If we wish to prefer a petition to men of high station, we do not presume to do it without humility and respect; how much more ought we to supplicate the Lord God of all things with all humility and pure devotion. And let us be sure that we shall not be heard for our much speaking, but for purity of heart and tears of compunction. Our prayer, therefore, ought to be short and pure, unless it chance to be prolonged by the impulse and inspiration of divine grace. In community, however, let prayer be very short, and when the superior has given the signal let all rise together.

Commentary

This final chapter of the liturgical code is interesting not least in that it stands in sharp contrast to some later schools of spirituality.

There is some modern debate on this chapter: the traditional view, embraced by Dom Delatte and others is that whereas the previous chapter refers to the Divine Office, this chapter is essentially about private prayers, with the last sentence most likely referring to the traditional period of communal prayer immediately after each hour.

Some modern commentators, however, such as Dom De Vogue, argue that St Benedict is really talking here about the pauses between psalms in the Office.  Personally I’m not terribly convinced by this, for reasons too complex to go into here.

In the end, though, whether we are talking about our approach to the Office here, or our private prayers, the same considerations surely apply.

First we are told to approach God with humility and respect, as we would a person in a position of authority in the world when we ask for things, rather than immediately treating him as if he were a close friend. We should be aware of the immense gap between man and God, St Benedict suggests, and start from an attitude of worship and devotion.

The recovery of this sense of the sacred, of the otherness and greatness of God, is of course one of the greatest priorities of the Church at the moment, something the Pope has been trying to lead by example through the use of more elaborate and beautiful vestments, Latin, chant, kneeling to receive communion and so much more.

Of course we can and should aspire to the status of close friend of God: but here as elsewhere in the Rule, St Benedict writes not for the saint, but for the person who still has some way to go in making progress in the spiritual life. So the message is that we shouldn’t presume, but rather start at least by regarding ourselves as labourers in the vineyard, even as we wait for God to invite us in further as we progress in his ways.

The second point to note is the emphasis on compunction, or remorse, and purity of heart, reiterating the tool of good work ‘Daily in one’s prayer, with tears and sighs, to confess one’s past sins to God’.

Again, these days there is a lot of emphasis on ‘moving on’ or putting things behind us. The more traditional view though is that even though we should have confessed our sins and been forgiven them, we must still do penance for them now, in order to avoid purgatory!

Confession, absolution and whatever penance we are set removes eternal punishment, but it doesn’t necessarily wipe out all the remaining temporal punishment that we have accumulated. Saying our Office however, or studying the psalms (even if we enjoy doing so), is a good work that can help make amends for what we have done wrong in the past.

Thirdly, St Benedict emphasizes non-vocal prayer. Whereas the earlier Eastern monastic tradition urges the use of short phrases throughout the day, and later traditions added in practices such as the rosary (all laudable in themselves), St Benedict, without excluding these, urges a more meditative, mystical approach, perhaps as a counter-balance to the hours of vocal prayer in the Office that he prescribes.

Finally, St Benedict urges brevity, particularly in communal prayer. It is notable that whereas St Teresa of Avila urged her disciples to spend as much time praying after Mass as possible for example, in order to capture the graces that followed from it, and set specific periods of meditation as part of the rule for her nuns, St Benedict does none of this.

Over time of course, what St Benedict left to the individual (see for example RB 52 which allows individual monks to stay after the Office and pray in the oratory) has tended to be formalized (largely to compensate, I would suggest, for the reduction in time typically allocated to lectio divina compared to that specified in the Rule). Still, I think this injunction fits in with St Benedict’s approach of viewing all of the monk’s activities as dedicated to God and times for awareness of his presence, not just the set times of prayer.

And on that note, we end this little series of notes on the liturgical chapters of St Benedict’s Rule. I hope you have found it interesting and useful.  Please do let me know if you have reactions, questions or points you would like to debate or explore further.

First Sunday of Lent (Feb 26)

Monreale Cathedral

The Office for the first Sunday of Lent

The Magnificat antiphon for I Vespers is from Isaiah 58:9. 

Here are the verses leading up to it:

"Cry, cease not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and show my people their wicked doings, and the house of Jacob their sins.  For they seek me from day to day, and desire to know my ways, as a nation that has done justice, and has not forsaken the judgment of their God: they ask of me the judgments of justice: they are willing to approach to God. Why have we fasted, and you have not regarded: have we humbled our souls, and you have not taken notice? Behold in the day of your fast your own will is found, and you exact of all your debtors. Behold you fast for debates and strife, and strike with the fist wickedly. Do not fast as you have done until this day, to make your cry to be heard on high. Is this such a fast as I have chosen: for a man to afflict his soul for a day? Is this it, to wind his head about like a circle, and to spread sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? Loose the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress, let them that are broken go free, and break asunder every burden.  Deal your bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harbourless into your house: when you shall see one naked, cover him, and despise not your own flesh. Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your health shall speedily arise, and your justice shall go before your face, and the glory of the Lord shall gather you up. Then shall you call, and the Lord shall hear: you shall cry, and he shall say, Here I am....

Our Lord's Temptation in the desert

The Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent is Matthew 4:1-11, which tells the story of Our Lord's temptation in the desert.

The highlight of the Mass of the day, though, is the singing of Psalm 90, Qui Habitat, which prophesies that temptation, particularly in the section used in the very long!) Tract.

The Office in Lent

The Office in Lent is quite complex, so it is worth taking some time to work it out in advance. In particular, there are specific readings set for each day of the week at (EF) Mass. So at Matins the readings are general patristic commentaries on the Gospel for the day, and the canticle antiphons also generally pick up the key messages from the Gospel.

The Ordinary of the ferial Office in Lent is set out in the Farnborough edition of the Monastic Diurnal at MD 190*ff.

For those saying Matins (not in the Diurnal): 

• the invitatory antiphon on weekdays is the same as throughout the year;
• the hymn is for the season of Lent and is the same each day (Ex more);
• the readings during the week are usually patristic, relating to the Gospel of the Mass set for that day;
• the chapter verse for Nocturn II is for the season (Is 1:16-18).

At Lauds and Vespers:

•  chapters, hymns, etc of the season replace those in the psalter section;
•  the canticle antiphons are proper for each day.

 Each day there are two sets of collects: the first for use from Matins to None; the second for Vespers.

It is also important to be aware that when a feast displaces the Lent texts, a commemoration of the day is made at both Lauds and Vespers using the respective collects, canticle antiphon and versicle that occurs before the relevant canticle at that hour.

There are no saints feasts celebrated in the Office this week, but note that Wednesday, Friday and Saturday are Ember Days.

St Benedict's liturgical code: Sing wisely (Feb 24 or 25/ June 26/Oct 26)

Dunois Hours, c15th

Today's chapter of the Rule deals with our dispositions when we say the Office.

Caput 19: De Disciplina Psallendi

UBIQUE credimus divinam esse praesentiam, et oculos Domini in omni loco speculari bonos et malos; maxime tamen hoc sine aliqua dubitatione creda-mus cum ad opus divinum assistimus. Ideo semper memores simus quod ait propheta: Servite Domino in timore; et iterum: Psallite sapienter; et: In conspectu angelorum psallam tibi. Ergo consideremus qualiter oporteat in conspectu Divinitatis et angelorum ejus esse; et sic stemus ad psallendum ut mens nostra concordet voci nostrae.

Chapter 19: The Manner of Saying the Divine Office

WE believe that God is present everywhere and that the eyes of the Lord in every place behold the good and the evil but let us especially believe this without any doubting when we are performing the Divine Office. Therefore, let us ever remember the words of the prophet: Serve ye the Lord in fear; and again, Sing ye wisely; and, In the sight of the angels will I sing to thee. Let us then consider how we ought to behave ourselves in the presence of God and his angels, and so sing the psalms that mind and voice may be in harmony.

Commentary

The last two chapters of the liturgical provisions of the Rule consider our proper dispositions as we say the Office and pray, and so serve as a useful point to touch on a very important subject, namely our external deportment or behaviour when we say the Office.

Once of the more unfortunate developments of recent years, in my view, has been an aversion to proper use of ritual and bodily gestures such as kneeling. Indeed, the 1977 Directory on the Office for the Benedictine Order even has a section in it warning of the dangers of ‘periculum ritualismi vacui’, or ‘empty ritualism’.

Yet such warnings forget two vital points.

First, they forget that we are in fact embodied beings, not just souls. We need gestures and rituals to remind us of what is important: it is inherent in human condition that the body calls the mind to order, and vice versa.

For this reason, St Benedict includes in these chapters (and throughout the Rule), numerous references to ritual and external gestures and actions – to slowing down the chant (and by implication speeding it up); to standing, sitting, bowing and prostrating; to what should be said aloud, what silently, and much more.  These instructions are there to help us, not to encourage external form for forms’ sake as some would suggest! So even when we say the Office privately, we should endeavour to be reverent in the way we approach it, and follow the rubrics on gestures as far as possible.

Secondly, St Benedict suggests in both this chapter, and in Chapter 7 on humility, that external manifestations of our devotion should actually flow from our internal dispositions. I suggested earlier in this series of notes that the chapter on humility (RB 7) actually serves as something of an introduction to the rationale for the detailed instructions on the Office St Benedict sets out: the Office serves to help train us in obedience to an external authority rather than the indulgence of our own personal likes and dislikes.

Here St Benedict makes the connection more explicit by recapitulating the opening and closing ideas of Chapter 7 in just a few brief lines, and applying the first and last degrees of humility specifically to the Office. When it comes to the Office he says, we should start by cultivating an appropriate fear of the Lord (the first degree of humility), a sense of reverence and awe that comes from knowing that he is watching everything we do, and that when we sing or say the Office, we do so in the company of the angels.

That awareness, he argues, should shape our behaviour, so that we manifest our internal dispositions externally (the twelfth degree of humility) in things like custody of the eyes, and obedience to the other body postures St Benedict and the rubrics prescribe such as standing for the Gloria Patri.

And of course implicitly we should be applying all the intervening steps on the ladder of humility to the way we approach the Office.

So how can we put all this into practice when saying the Office privately?

First, say the Office in an approved form, following the rubrics and rules as best possible.

Secondly, try and set up some special corner of a room to say the Office in, with an icon or cross to focus the attention.

Thirdly, try and avoid distractions, give the particular hour all our attention – it is not something to be said while sipping a cup of coffee and watching television!

There are always exceptions of course – better to say the Office and pray in some way than not at all. Indeed, Chapter 50 makes it clear that the Office can be performed anywhere if necessary.  But still with reverence.

And for the final part in this series, click here.

St Benedict's liturgical code: Should we 'update' St Benedict's psalm scheme? (Feb 24/June 25/Oct 25)

Chludow Psalter, c850

Today's section of the Rule returns to the beginning of the Office, and the psalms of Matins.  But it also includes what I consider to be that most abused of provisions, the invitation to make some other arrangement of the psalms, provided that all 150 psalms are said in the course of the week. 

Caput XVIII/IV

Disposito ordine psalmodiae diurnae, reliqui omnes psalmi qui supersunt aequaliter dividantur in septem noctium Vigilias, partiendo scilicet qui inter eos prolixiores sunt psalmi, et duodecim per unamquamque constituantur noctem: hoc praecipue commonentes, ut si cui forte haec distributio psalmorum displicuerit, ordinet si melius aliter judicaverit; dum omnimodis id attendat, ut omni hebdomada psalterium ex integro numero centum quinquaginta psalmorum psallatur, et dominico die semper a capite reprehendatur ad Vigilias; quia nimis inertem devotionis suae servitium ostendunt monachi, qui minus a psalterio cum canticis consuetudinariis per septimanae circulum psallunt, dum quando legamus sanctos patres nostros uno die hoc strenue implesse, quod nos tepidi utinam septimana integra persolvamus.

Chapter 18/4

The order of psalms for the Day Hours being thus arranged, let all the remaining psalms be equally distributed among the seven Night Offices, by dividing the longer psalms and assigning twelve psalms to each night.

But we strongly recommend, if this arrangement of the psalms be displeasing to anyone, that he arrange them otherwise, as shall seem better to him; provided always that he take care that the psalter with its full hundred and fifty psalms be chanted every week and begun afresh every Sunday at Matins.

For those monks show themselves very slothful in their sacred service, who in the course of the week sing less than the psalter and the customary canticles, whereas we read that our holy fathers strenuously fulfilled in a single day what I pray that we lukewarm monks may perform in a whole week.

Commentary

Today's section of the Rule is actually end of the detailed prescriptions on the structure of the Benedictine Office: the next two chapters, though generally considered part of the liturgical code, really deal with how to pray rather then the structure of the Office itself. The liturgical code proper, then ends here where it began, on the great night Office of Matins, arguably reflecting its centrality to St Benedict's vision of what a monk is.

It has to be said that most modern commentaries on this chapter pretty much ignore the comments on the psalms of Matins, and focus instead on the seeming permission to reorganise the psalter.  I think that is a mistake, for reasons I'll set out below.  Nonetheless, let us first look at that sentence that has been used to justify the wholesale abandonment of the traditional Benedictine Office by most modern monasteries.

Can we rearrange the psalter?

St Benedict devotes several chapters to setting out his preferred framework for the Office. 

His 'opt-out' provision constitutes one sentence, and is hedged around with warnings about the danger of sloth!

So it is surely one of the greatest ironies that the instruction to 'return to the sources' contained in Vatican II's Perfectae Caritatis, instead of leading to a renewal of interest in the traditional Office actually led to its wholesale abandonment!

Worse, St Benedict makes it clear that any rearrangement of the psalter should at least retain a weekly psalm cursus.  Yet this provision, too, is widely ignored.

The rationale for all this, at least according to the 1977 Thesaurus Liturgiae Hororum Monasticae, put out under now disgraced Archbishop, then Abbot Primate, Rembert Weakland, was an emphasis on the idea of ‘quality over quantity’. The results, in terms of the continuing decline in vocations and the scandals that continue to rock a number of 'Benedictine' monasteries, speak for themselves in my view.

The real message St Benedict wants to emphasize, I would suggest, in returning here to the longest hour of the Office and putting the option of an alternative psalm schema in this context, is that though it might all seem rather long and demanding to us, his Office is in fact a considerably less demanding one, appropriate to "we lukewarm monks", compared to the Office of the monastic tradition as he received it.

I agree strongly with Abbot Lawrence of Christ in the Desert who comments:

"Saint Benedict really prefers his own arrangement, but allows that it could be changed but he does insist on a certain length to the Divine Office...if we are going to be true to our own Benedictine tradition, the best way is to follow the Divine Office as it is described in the Holy Rule...”

Coming back to Matins

Finally I wanted to note that by leaving the allocation of the psalms for Matins until last, and simply saying split the longest psalms, St Benedict perhaps gives the impression that the allocation of the psalms to each day of the week for this hour is relatively random. But this impression is entirely deceptive.

In the case of Matins it isn't necessary to specify which psalms to split, because splitting the psalms with the most verses, in combination with necessary reordering accomplished by starting Matins at psalm 20 and pulling out selected psalms to be said at other hours (mostly Lauds) ensures that the hour stays loosely aligned with Lauds each day during the week, both thematically and numerically.

For the next part in this series, go here.

St Benedict's liturgical code: Vespers and Compline (Feb 23/June 24/Oct 24)

Stuttgart Psalter

Today, a look at the allocation of psalms to Vespers and Compline.

Caput XVIII/III

Vespera autem cotidie quattuor psalmorum modulatione canatur. Qui psalmi incipiantur a centesimo nono usque centesimo quadragesimo septimo : exceptis his qui in diversis horis ex eis sequestrantur, id est, a centesimo septimo decimo usque centesimo vigesimo septimo, et centesimo trigesimo tertio et centesimo quadragesimo secundo; reliqui omnes in Vespera dicendi sunt. Et quia minus veniunt tres psalmi, ideo dividendi sunt qui ex numero suprascripto fortiores inveniuntur: id est, centesimus trigesimus octavus, et centesimus quadragesimus tertius, et centesimus quadragesimus quartus. Centesimus vero sextus decimus, quia parvus est, cum centesimo quinto decimo conjungatur. Digesto ergo ordine psalmorum vespertinorum, reliqua, id est lectio, responsum, hymnus, versus, vel canticum, sicut supra taxavimus impleatur. Ad Completorios vero cotidie iidem psalmi repetantur: id est, quartus, nonagesimus, et centesimus trigesimus tertius.

Ch 18/3

Vespers shall be sung every day with four psalms. Let these begin with the hundred and ninth and go on to the hundred and forty-seventh, those being omitted which are set aside for special Hours, namely, the hundred and seventeenth to the hundred and twenty-seventh, the hundred and thirty-third and the hundred and forty-second. All the rest are to be said at Vespers. And since there are three psalms too few, let the longer psalms in the above number be divided, namely, the hundred and thirty-eighth, the hundred and forty-third, and the hundred and forty-fourth. But the hundred and sixteenth psalm, being short, shall be joined to the hundred and fifteenth. The order of the vesper psalms being thus settled, let the rest of the Hour, that is to say, lesson, responsory, hymn, versicle, and canticle, be carried out as we prescribed before. At Compline let the same psalms be repeated every day: that is, the fourth, the ninetieth, and the hundred and thirty-third.

Commentary

The psalms allocated to Compline are the same every day, and the rationale for their selection is fairly obvious, so I won't go into it here.  St Benedict's arrangement of Vespers, though, takes a little more work to understand I think.

Vespers, as I’ve previously noted, has an association with Our Lord’s death, and traditionally monasteries use both lamps and incense in their Vespers rituals to symbolize this.

In terms of the psalms for the hour, it is often suggested that Vespers reverts to a running cursus of psalms. That’s true in the Roman Rite, but even a cursory look at St Benedict's prescriptions will show that isn’t really the case in the Benedictine rite.

As I've suggested previously, my view is that St Benedict is crafting the psalm allocations for programmatic effect: St Benedict is very explicit about where the psalms are to be split, and where the running cursus structure is to be ignored. Nor is the motivation to even out the length of the Office, because in fact the result of his efforts is to make some of them rather longer in length than others.

Psalm 113 on Monday (Sunday in the Roman Rite), for example, is extremely long (it is actually two psalms in the Hebrew psalter), and yet Monday actually gets an extra psalm added (albeit the shortest psalm in the psalter), adding up to a total of 53 verses to be said.  Personally I think that is because both Psalm 113 and Psalm 128 link very neatly to the themes of Our Lord's Incarnation and hidden life on earth up to and including his baptism.

This arrangement also allows Tuesday Vespers to continue the sequence of Gradual psalms started at the little hours on that day, leaving Wednesday to pick up the theme of Our Lord's betrayal by his own people (over and over in history, as well as by Judas and the priests and pharisees), resulting in the election of the gentiles (a theme also reflected in the Canticle of Hannah at Lauds).

In contrast to the length of Monday (53 verses) and Wednesday (69 verses) Vespers, Thursday, Friday and Saturday Vespers are much shorter (48, 47 and 43 verses respectively), the result of splitting psalms in two.  Sunday and Tuesday are even shorter still, at 34 and 36 verses respectively, making the decision to move Psalm 113 to Monday, and separate Psalm 128 from the other Gradual psalms even odder on the face of it.

But if you take a look at the actual content of the psalms and sections of psalms set for those days and look for the connections - for example viewing Thursday to Saturday as a weekly mini-Triduum - I think you will see why St Benedict has arranged the psalmody as he has.

Regardless of whether you agree with my view of St Benedict's programmatic intent, however, the evidence does point to the saints’ care for the construction of the hour, and reminds us, I think, of the central importance of the psalms to Benedictine spirituality.

As Abbot Lawrence of Christ in the Desert Monastery comments:

“For our spirituality, we need to have an easy familiarity with the Psalms. We need to continue to study them year after year and let them deepen in us. For Benedictine spirituality, the Psalms are the heart of the Divine Office and we need to spend our lives knowing them more and more.”

For the next part of the series, go here.

St Benedict's liturgical code: Terce, Sext and None (Feb 22/June 23/Oct 23)

c13th Songs of the Ascent

Today's section of the Rule deals with the Little Hours.

Caput XVIII/II

Ad Tertiam vero, Sextam, Nonamque secundae feriae novem capitula quae residua sunt de centesimo octavo decimo, ipsa terna per easdem horas dicantur. Expenso ergo psalmo centesimo octavo decimo duobus diebus, id est dominico et secunda feria, tertia feria jam ad Tertiam, Sextam, vel Nonam psallantur terni psalmi, a centesimo nono decimo usque centesimo vigesimo septimo, id est psalmi novem. Quique psalmi semper usque Dominicam per easdem horas itidem repetantur, hymnorum nihilominus lectionum vel versuum dispositione uniform! cunctis diebus servata; et ita scilicet semper Dominica a centesimo octavo decimo incipietur.

Chapter 18/2

At Terce, Sext, and None on Monday, let the remaining nine sections of the hundred and eighteenth psalm be said, three at each of these Hours. The hundred and eighteenth psalm having been said thus on two days, that is Sunday and Monday, let Terce, Sext, and None of Tuesday each have three psalms, taken in order from the hundred and nineteenth to the hundred and twenty-seventh, i.e. nine psalms. And let these psalms be repeated at these Hours every day until Sunday; but let the arrangement of hymns, lessons, and versicles be kept the same on all days. Thus Prime on Sunday will always begin with the hundred and eighteenth psalm.

Commentary

I’ve mentioned previously that the hours of Terce, Sext and None, at least in some form, date back to the earliest days of the Church, and almost certainly back to Jewish prayer patterns. Still, the early Church Fathers gave them a makeover with Christian associations, so that Tertullian and other early third century commentators, for example, associate Terce with the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost; Sext with Peter going to pray on the housetop at the sixth hour, and having the vision that leads to the abandonment of the Jewish dietary and other restrictions (Acts 10:9); and None with Our Lord’s crucifixion. The hymns for these hours allude at least in passing to these themes.

St Benedict, however, seems to me to give these hours a firm focus on our pilgrimage through life in his selection of the psalms for them. He takes the long and beautiful meditation on the law of the Lord in Psalm 118, with its frequent allusions to the way of life, at a very leisurely pace, spread out over two days.

Then for the rest of the week, he sets six of the ‘Gradual Psalms’, the pilgrim songs that were sung on the way to Jerusalem for major feasts, thus helping us mark the progress of our daily pilgrimage towards the heavenly Jerusalem. These psalms are short, and the hymn the same each day, allowing it to be readily memorized and said if necessary in the workplace or fields (RB 50): not a bad idea for us to emulate.

There is also, in my view, a reason for them starting on Tuesday in the psalter.  Many of Tuesday's psalms, including at Matins, have a strong focus on the Temple, and the desire to enter into it fully.  Indeed, all but one of the fifteen Gradual Psalms, or  'Songs of the Ascent', are sung on this day.

If Monday in the Office is about the Incarnation, then, the theme for Tuesday, in my view, is Christ's public ministry, during which he teaches us how to live properly as Christians.

First we must prepare ourselves, by meditating on the law, using Psalm 118.   Then we must learn how to be pilgrims towards heaven, and constantly remind ourselves that we are on a journey, that has a purpose and an endpoint.

For the next part of the series, see here.

Ash Wednesday (Feb 22)

Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting and abstinence.

As the ashes are imposed, the priest says "Remember, O man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:19)

For Ash Wednesday, the Gospel is Matthew 6:15-21:

"And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."