Pastor's Weekly Message

29th Sunday in ordinary time, 18 Oct 2026

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HS

              JMJ               

My Dear Fellow Saints-in-the-Making,

Greetings in Christ our Lord and God!

As we continue to live with faith in this month dedicated both to the Most Holy Rosary and to promoting and preserving the dignity of all human life, Jesus presents a particular challenge to the Pharisees who plot to entrap Him in order to have some cause to put Him to death. In response to their hypocrisy about the legality of paying the census tax, Jesus asks them whose image is on the coin that pays the census tax? When the Pharisees reply, “Caesar’s,” Jesus responds, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

This is the first-century equivalent of our modern-day “mike drop.” But this “mike drop” is meant not just for the Pharisees; our Lord is also challenging us.

Do we “repay to God what belongs to God?” At our Sunday worship, for example, do we participate “fully, actively, and consciously,” as specified in Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium, the document on the Sacred Liturgy? Do we participate by saying the prayers and responses with full voice or rather, are we silent spectators? Do we think about what we are praying or do we pray by rote? Are we attentive to the readings and homily or do we let our minds wander without bringing them back? Are we at Mass because we love the Lord our God and want to do what is right and just by worshipping Him as is His due or instead are we at church only by obligation?

As Pope Leo mentioned in one of his audiences in August, “Through the Church’s ritual actions, whilst the memorial of the work of salvation [that is, the Mass] is celebrated, the opportunity is provided to experience a true relationship with God, coming into contact with the salvific event….Since the gestures and words of the Sacred Liturgy are critical to realizing this experience, the participation of the faithful cannot be passive.”

When you and I participate fully, consciously, and actively, we are repaying to God what is God’s, because His image is on the “coin” of our soul by virtue of His creating us, is it not? And therefore, you and I, we belong to Him, do we not? Does He not, then, deserve all of us: all our heart, all our mind, all our soul? Is this not the very commandment Jesus says is the greatest?

Let us, then, my Dear Friends in Christ, strive more and more to be fully attentive, consciously aware, and actively participating in the Mysteries of our salvation which we celebrate every Sunday so that our Lord and our God might truly be glorified and we might give all of ourselves to Him.

God love you! I do.