Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Intention: For missionaries and for Lasallians serving far from home, that they are supported in the work and remembered by the communities that sent them.
Today’s Gospel | Matthew 22:15-21
The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech. They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status. Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
From the Ninth Meditation for the Time of Retreat | Saint John Baptist de La Salle
For this reason, and in this spirit, you must have the love and the glory of God as your single aim in the instruction of these children for the love of God ought to impel you, because Jesus Christ died for all so that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who died for them. This is what your zeal must inspire in your disciples, as if God himself were appealing through you, since you are ambassadors for Jesus Christ.
Prayer
Eternal Father, the coin carried Caesar’s image, and we carry yours. Help us to give civic life its due without giving it what belongs to you. Keep us honest in the questions we ask and in the answers we give. Let every person we meet today be treated as someone who bears your image. We ask this of you who lives and reigns with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.