Psalm 18:11
where your treasure is
More to be desired than gold and many precious stones: and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. (Psalm 18:11 DR)
St. Paul has a somewhat enigmatic series of thoughts in his first epistle to the Corinthians:
Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: Every man's work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. (1 Corinthians 3:12-13 DR)
The foundation is Christ, but there is self-evidently more to be built onto this foundation (since foundations are mean tot be built upon). The works which we do are the structures upon this foundation, but the perhaps seemingly paradoxical aspect of this is that not every work is of the same quality or value, even though they are all predicated on Christ as the foundation. Indeed, St. Paul notes that they will be tried and tested on the day of the Lord and shown for what they are. St. Paul further elaborates:
If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. (1 Corinthians 3:14-15 DR)
There is thus a real cost and real reward for the works which we do. We can build upon this foundation with works that will abide and those which will be consumed, and it is not a matter of indifference which is which. For St. Paul earlier says: “But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.” (1 Corinthians 3:10 DR)
Our works can bring reward, as gold or silver or precious stones which pass through the fire unscathed yet more pure and lustrous than before, or can bring loss like wood and stubble and hay which are consumed.
Since these works are being laid on the foundation of Christ, it s not a matter of salvation per se, as St. Paul notes that those whose works are consumed will suffer loss but still be saved as by (or through) fire. What is this fire, then? It seems an allusion to Purgatory, in which the promise of salvation is certain yet the works of men are tried and found wanting, consumed away by purifying fire. The loss spoken of here is the reward that those who build with gold and such receive, which ultimately would seem to be a greater capacity to love God. Just as the Blessed Virgin Mary as the summit of created human beings has the greatest capacity to love and receive God’s love because of her immaculate conception, so in our lives we build on the foundation of Christ the structures which will, so to speak, be able to receive God’s love in eternity.
Even though the blessed will all enjoy the Beatific Vision, they will not all do so in a equal measure. Just as in the angelic order the Seraphim are able by nature to love God more than all other angels, so in our embodied order we can cooperate more or less fully with his grace, which increases our capacity to love God forever.
In this verse the Psalmist mystically alludes to this as he declares the law of the Lord and the fear thereof to be more costly and valuable than gold. It is this purity of heart that our Lord says will be the mark of those who will see God.
There is an irony that the chasing after of earthly gold (or its many equivalents in this life) is what causes us to build structures of wood and hay and stubble which will be consumed by God’s consuming fire, but that in treating the things of this world as of no account that we begin to build things which will truly last.
This animation makes heavy use of the Motion Tile effect in After Effects. I built a simple isometric bar of gold and Track Matted various gold textures to each face, and then precomped all the faces and textures so that I could control the layer size, as Motion Tile is dependent on the pixel size of the layer.
After a bit of experimentation I figured out the right size and then expanded the Expansion of the width and then animated the Motion Tile center to get the loop correct. I then duplicated this layer and reversed it, redid the animation and loop, and then repeated to fill the screen.
I then added in a few textured lines and the text. I used the isoMatic FX script to get the text oriented correctly in isometric space. This script is a lifesaver when creating isometric graphics and animations! I also added some drop shadows to give the scene some depth.
I finally added some texture and color correction and it was done. I like how it turned out, even though it’s a pretty simple concept.
Enjoy.
More to be desired than gold and many precious stones:
and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.
(Psalm 18:11 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: