Gospel:
Matthew 17:22-27
As Jesus
and his disciples were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of
Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised
on the third day.” And they were overwhelmed with grief.
When they
came to Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax approached Peter and said,
“Does not your teacher pay the temple tax?” “Yes,” he said. When he came into
the house, before he had time to speak, Jesus asked him, “What is your opinion,
Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax? From their
subjects or from foreigners?” When he said, “From foreigners,” Jesus said to
him, “Then the subjects are exempt. But that we may not offend them, go to the
sea, drop in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up. Open its mouth and
you will find a coin worth twice the temple tax. Give that to them for me and
for you.”
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Reflection:
To pay or
not to pay the temple tax? Of course Jesus did right when He decided to pay.
What if Jesus decided not to pay the temple tax? He would have been a bad
example to His followers and He would have given His opponents a window of
opportunity to persecute Him earlier than expected.
For Jesus to do right is always His top
priority to do wrong is never in His mind it’s always to do whatever is good
and right. And we must always do good and do right also all the time.
Although
we are not required to give a certain percentage of our income to the church.
In hindsight this gospel invites us also to examine our generosity toward our
church, how generous are we in giving to our church? For example, during Holy
Mass, how generous are we during offertory? Do we give an amount that hurts our
pockets or we give out from our spare or crumbs?
We must
give generously for whatever we give generously to the church the Good Lord
will give back to us a hundredfold. We
can never outgive God for the more that we give Him the more that we would
receive from Him. – Marino J. Dasmarinas
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