You're listening to the I Pray with the Gospel Sunday Reflection on the St. Jose Maria Institute podcast.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me.

I adore you with profound reverence.

Ask your pardon for my sins and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful.

My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my Father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

The 19th Sunday and ordinary time.

A reading from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12.

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning,

and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from a marriage feast,

so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks.

Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.

Our Lord wants his disciples to be ready to meet him each day, and the many people who need us.

The French have an expression which is translated as staircase wit.

It refers to the situation when you come up with a perfect reply too late when you have already left the room and are on the stairs.

How many times has it occurred to you that I should have said something? I should have helped there. I should have asked about his illness. By then it's too late. We're thinking about other things, probably our own things.

Our heart is full of self. Consider Ghalm from the Lord of the Rings, absorbed in the

ring and repeating to himself, my precious. We like Ghalm can be so absorbed in our own

concerns, ambitions, possessions, and comforts that we miss the opportunity to meet Jesus and other people

who need us. Where we have our treasure, we have our heart. And it also works the other way around.

If we put our heart into serving others, they become our treasure. A man popped by to see his

...