In this week’s Gospel according to St. Matthew, the Pharisees and Herodians were plotting against Jesus and trying to trap him into saying the wrong thing so that Jesus will be arrested. This was very unusual for the Pharisees and Herodians to be working together because at that time, the Pharisees and Herodians were enemies. The Pharisees thought that Romans rule over the Jewish people was blasphemy; while the Herodians supported the Roman rule.

However because of their hatred toward Jesus, they joined one another and plotted on “how they might entrap Jesus.” They had proposed a question to Jesus, “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Casear or not?” Should a person pay tax to Rome? If Jesus answers “yes,” he would be alienating all the Jews who were present at that time. If he answers “no,” he would be arrested by the Romans. However because Jesus knew what they were plotting he answers the question by using a Roman coin. On the coin was an image of Casear and so Jesus answer them give “to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but to God what belongs to God.”

When Jesus said, “Give to God what belongs to God,” what does belong to God? The answer is EVERYTHING! God gave us life. God created this world. Every person, everything belongs to God. And in this world which belongs to God, God wants to shape it into the kingdom of God. As Christians, we are called to shape the moral decisions made in our society, to criticize bad moral choices, and to support good moral decisions. We owe to God the building up of God’s kingdom. What belongs to God? A God-centered life, that occurs every day, in every circumstance.


Questions for reflection

1. Do you act like Christians in church, but outside church do as we please?
2. Do you seek God in prayer, but do not follow God’s commandments in daily life?
3. What do you owe God and your neighbor?
4. Do you acknowledge that your life and everything you possess belongs to God and not to yourself?
5. Do you give to God what rightfully belongs to Him?

Prayer of St. Anselm, 1033-1109 AD

"Lord, because you have made me, I owe you the whole of my love; because you have redeemed me, I owe you the whole of myself; because you have promised so much, I owe you all my being.

Moreover, I owe you as much more love than myself as you are greater than I, for whom you gave yourself and to whom you promised yourself.

I pray you, Lord, make me taste by love what I taste by knowledge; let me know by love what I know by understanding.

I owe you more than my whole self, but I have no more, and by myself I cannot render the whole of it to you.

Draw me to you, Lord, in the fullness of love. I am wholly yours by creation; make me all yours, too, in love."

by Hồng Ân Chúa