“For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

Yes, from those who have no divine life in them, who choose to cling to their sin, even the joys and pleasures of this life will be taken away–may we not be among them, please God!

And heaven, the Church has always taught, will be a hierarchy. There are different degrees of glory. As St. Therese says, in heaven everyone’s joy will be full–but some will have the capacity for joy of a great vessel, and others that of a thimble.

We won’t all have hearts of the same size.

Yet heaven will be a great symphony among the saved, “the great and the small alike,” to quote Revelation. We will each have our part–our unique, wonderful, beautiful part written for us by God that no one else can sing. We will each be an irreplaceable part of that great music, that great community, if we participate here and now with the grace of God.

Here and now, we must beg God to stretch our hearts, as St. Augustine says, to the size and shape he has for all eternity intended them to be. We must strive to cooperate with the work of his sanctification–the discomfort of the stretching.

“Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven, when neither moth nor decay destroy, nor thieves break in and steal.”

This is the message of Jesus’s parable today. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. There is no need to compare yourself to others. Your part in the music isn’t theirs. You can no more sing their part than they can sing yours, and whatever part is meant for you, rest assured that you could NEVER, in a million lifetimes, have written anything so perfect for yourself, so fitting for you, so pleasing to you, so wonderful to your heart and to your ears.