Today is the twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
This week we get the famous Gospel reading about God and Caesar. The Pharisees are trying to trick Jesus and find a way to have Him put to death. Jesus knows this, of course, but He still finds a way to get His message across.
To me the main thing is this matter of giving God what is due to Him while still giving the state it’s due. I don’t think it’s an either/or matter. There are things that are truly God’s purview but others that are of this world. We live in the world and rightly should be engaged in it as good citizens.
What are the things that “belong to God”? Well, certainly our deepest love and affection belong to God. As Aquinas famously said there are things we substitute for God. We’ve probably all heard Bishop Barron talk about wealth, power, pleasure and honor as things we sometimes substitute for God. A favorite Christmas hymn of mine is In the Bleak Midwinter. At the end the singer asks “If I were a wise man I would do my part, yet what can I give him, Give my heart”. That’s what I think God wants from us. That deepest most treasured part of our lives, represented by our heart.
Scripture (Dt 6) tells us the greatest of the Mosaic laws was to love God with all our heart, soul, and might. Jesus tells us we must also love our neighbors as ourselves.
So, we know what is due God but how many times do we hold something back. As C.S. Lewis wrote, we invite Jesus into our lives but then try to restrict Him only to certain rooms in our house so to speak.
There’s also a danger that we’ll pay too much attention to the things of this world and not enough to the things of God. As I said, we need to be engaged good citizens but like anything else, we can go too far. Electing the right candidates is important but it isn’t everything. Like Mary who chose the better part (Lk 10) we need to make sure being busy with the things of this world, as Martha was, doesn’t keep us from giving God His full due. Though I admit we would all be hungry were it not for the Marthas of the world, so there’s that.
I don’t know who needs to hear this but Christmas is just over two months away. I love Christmas, and Christmas music. In fact on my phone I have a lot of music of various genres. A lot of times when I’m driving I’ll just set it to randomly play all the songs. Invariably some of them will be Christmas songs. Regardless of the time of year I’m always happy to hear one. Here’s a beautiful version of In the Bleak Midwinter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2S-XmPj62k
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.
I hope you have a great week.
Peace, Bob
