29th Sunday 2023

It is not difficult to follow Jesus when you see his miracles, when you hear his rousing speeches. It is not difficult to follow Jesus when his thinking, views, interests are in line with yours. The real dilemmas, and perhaps even trials of faith, begin when we are forced to take a stand, to take a side. It is easy to judge others for wrong choices, behaviours, attitudes. It is more difficult when life forces us to make decisions that are not easy to make on our own.                                        The question put to Jesus in today’s Gospel is not just about the dilemma of paying tax.                 It’s a question about our conscience, it’s a question about our relationship with the world, to what happens in it, to what surrounds us. Jesus teaches us the right attitude. We cannot ignore what is happening around us. We cannot reject reality and pretend that it does not affect us.           We cannot fight the world and everything around us that is not like us, that does not conform to our idea of the world, that does not coincide with our value system.

God gives us the opportunity to look through His eyes at the ‘coin’ of our lives and the world around us. This insight allows us to see the true price of life, the world, money, knowledge. The world is not evil. God made it beautiful and good. God proposed harmony in the world and in human life. Maybe that’s why we get lost in life, because we have stopped feeling that rhythm of God’s breath within us. We have lost ourselves in the pursuit of what does not give joy, happiness, peace. It is therefore necessary to take up this ‘coin’ of one’s life from time to time and call by name what is important and what is unimportant .                                                             How good it is that, as believers, we have such a ‘mirror’ in which we can look at ourselves, call things by name, see ourselves and the world in real colours and shapes.                                         So that we only have enough courage. So that we do not run out of strength.

This is what we ask of God, that we apply God’s view of the world in our lives – a clear view, a wise view, a true view. This will help us to make the right choices at difficult times, the uncomfortable decisions.  Today we are celebrating World Mission Sunday. World Mission Sunday is celebrated in every Catholic community in  the world. On this special day, through prayer, reflection and material help, we express our support of missionaries who today are striving to preach and live the Gospel among those who have yet to receive it.                               We all have a part to play in igniting God’s love. This World Mission Sunday let us set hearts ablaze with Christ’s love through missionaries and the inspiring people they walk alongside.