Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Feast of Saint Luke, evangelist and author of the Acts of the Apostles. According to tradition, he was a physician and a painter.
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Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Feast of Saint Luke, evangelist and author of the Acts of the Apostles. According to tradition, he was a physician and a painter.
First Reading
Isaiah 45,1.4-6
Thus says Yahweh to his anointed one, to Cyrus whom, he says, I have grasped by his right hand, to make the nations bow before him and to disarm kings, to open gateways before him so that their gates be closed no more: It is for the sake of my servant Jacob and of Israel my chosen one, that I have called you by your name, have given you a title though you do not know me. I am Yahweh, and there is no other, there is no other God except me. Though you do not know me, I have armed you so that it may be known from east to west that there is no one except me. I am Yahweh, and there is no other,
Psalmody
Psalm 95
Antiphon
Sing to the Lord a new song.
O sing a new song to the Lord,
sing to the Lord all the earth.
O sing to the Lord, bless his name.
Proclaim his help day by day,
tell among the nations his glory
and his wonders among all the peoples.
The Lord is great and worthy of praise,
to be feared above all gods;
the gods of the heathens are naught.
It was the Lord who made the heavens,
his are majesty and state and power
and splendour in his holy place.
Give the Lord, you families of peoples,
give the Lord glory and power,
give the Lord the glory of his name.
Bring an offering and enter his courts,
worship the Lord in his temple.
O earth, tremble before him.
Proclaim to the nations : 'God is king'.
The world he made firm in its place;
he will judge the peoples in fairness.
Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad,
let the sea and all within it thunder praise,
let the land and all it bears rejoice,
and the trees of the wood shout for joy
at the presence of the Lord for he comes,
he comes to rule the earth.
With justice he will rule the world,
he will judge the peoples with his truth.
Second Reading
1 Thessalonians 1,1-5
Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, to the Church in Thessalonica which is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace. We always thank God for you all, mentioning you in our prayers continually. We remember before our God and Father how active is the faith, how unsparing the love, how persevering the hope which you have from our Lord Jesus Christ. We know, brothers loved by God, that you have been chosen, because our gospel came to you not only in words, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with great effect. And you observed the sort of life we lived when we were with you, which was for your sake.
Reading of the Gospel
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Matthew 22,15-21
Then the Pharisees went away to work out between them how to trap him in what he said. And they sent their disciples to him, together with some Herodians, to say, 'Master, we know that you are an honest man and teach the way of God in all honesty, and that you are not afraid of anyone, because human rank means nothing to you. Give us your opinion, then. Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?' But Jesus was aware of their malice and replied, 'You hypocrites! Why are you putting me to the test? Show me the money you pay the tax with.' They handed him a denarius, and he said, 'Whose portrait is this? Whose title?' They replied, 'Caesar's.' Then he said to them, 'Very well, pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar -- and God what belongs to God.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Homily
"Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" This is what the Pharisees ask to catch Jesus in an error. It seems like a question that has nothing to do with our lives or our time. But in reality, the Gospel is always speaking to us, even today. It is not a book about the past, which we should dust off everyone once in a while or listen to like an edifying ancient story. The Gospel is God who speaks to me, to us, today. Jesus escapes from the insidious ambush by moving the question from the ideological level (the legality of paying tribute) to the practical. He asks them to show him a "coin used for the tax," the common coin minted by Rome used in the entire Empire. Jesus asks whose title and portrait is used when stamping the money to identify it. They respond, "The emperor's." And Jesus answers, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." The answer upsets those who are listening. In every situation, we have to ask what belongs to the emperor and what belongs to God. In Jesus' answer it is clear what belongs to the emperor: just that coin from the Roman mint on which is stamped the "image" of the emperor. Therefore the coin should be returned to the owner. In this matter the Gospel does not go beyond this indication. The crucial question for Jesus is the other one: what belongs to God? The term "image," used by Jesus to refer to the coin, is certainly a reference to the biblical phrase found at the very beginning of Scripture: "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them" (Gen 1:27).
Every human being, with no exceptions, is radically marked by the divine presence. It cannot be taken away, because it is even stronger than our sin: we can deface or disfigure it, but we cannot erase it. Every human being is an icon of God, created in God's image. And yet this icon is certainly not given back to the Lord. Instead it is often offended and humiliated. But by disfiguring ourselves and others, we deface the very image of God. Jesus is trying to encourage those who are listening to him to give God the things that belong to God: that is, every man and every woman. What is God's? Every human being is God's. Indeed, the whole of creation is God's. The very breath of life belongs to God, which we receive from God and give back to God every time we love. And we will return it to God on the last day. God's is the love that makes every face beautiful and continues the power of creation. God's the friendship that unites men and women together and the charity that God entrusts to us in order to defeat evil. Our heart, the part of us that is most distinctively ours and most distinctively human, belongs to God.
Giving God what belongs to God means recognizing that we are not masters of ourselves or of others. We are always only debtors: we have received much, everything, and we have to return it and multiply it. Only by multiplying what we have received and giving it to men and women, and to God, can we create a future for ourselves and for others. Love is the only thing that does not steal and is not lost. It is multiplied, preserved, and regenerated. It gives one hundredfold and a life that never ends.
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
