29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
This weekend we have Mission Sunday the day when we celebrate the missionary effort of the church in the world. In 1926, Pope Pius XI decided the Church needed a special day on which to pray for missionaries, and to renew her commitment to the missions. Today, World Mission Day is celebrated in Ireland in October, as a sign of support and solidarity for missions and missionaries everywhere. All of us will have heard of someone who has joined one of the missionary orders such as Columbans, Mill Hill Fathers, St. Patricks Fathers the Medical Missionaries of Mary there are many other missionary religious orders who along with the Lay Missionary movements have gone out into the world to bring the message of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. As we celebrate the churches missionary effort and the people involved in it we also remember the ongoing wars in the world especially in Ukraine and the Holy Land and the need to pray for peace in the world.
This Sundays Gospel passage is built around the saying in verse 21, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”. It is a “wisdom saying” and the passage invites us to enter into it with our feelings. Its truth should touch us so deeply that we are filled with humility as we realise that we do not live up to it as individuals, as Church and as communities when we put Cesar before God. Perhaps Jesus’ words that the coin which bears Caesar’s image belongs to Caesar means also that those things which bear the image of God belong to God including human beings and creation. This gospel is regularly cited among those both inside and outside the church. Many people want the church to stay inside the church building, praying and singing behind closed doors about “spiritual matters.” and that notion is quite wrong the Church needs to be in the world as a light in the darkness and a voice for those who have none. We have to remember that the Church and we its people are called to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
We have the responsibility as people of faith in the places where we live to speak the truth with charity, clarity and conviction. We have the responsibility to work and pray for peace especially when so much of the world is at war. We have responsibility towards the care of the planet, because God who created us has made us stewards of his creation. God wants all of us to experience his saving presence in our lives. it is through God’s grace that we have received the Gospel Message of faith and then we are sent by the Holy Spirit to be ambassadors of God. Will we accept the invitation to join in God’s mission by our prayers and support for those who are out there on the missions as well as those who need our help closer to home on the mission fields that sadly many of our countries have become. Our annual celebration of Mission Sunday gives us the opportunity to acknowledge all the missionary men and women who left everything behind in order to bring the light of faith to the far corners of the world.
When we think about the three parables we have heard over recent weeks we can say that the idea of giving back to God what belongs to God can be understood as giving back the love, generosity, justice and goodness we have received from God. Just as God did not lose anything by giving us these gifts, we don’t lose anything by making them real in our lives, so that others may also share in God’s life through us. We pray that the Lord will continue to inspire many people to join the missionary effort of the Church so that the love of God may be passed on to each generation in its turn as it has been passed on to all of us.
Fullerton T 