Gospel: Matthew 17:22-27
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.”
+ + + + + + +
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 from the heart 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 out give God for the more that we give Him the more
that we would receive from Him. – Marino J. Dasmarinas
No comments:
Post a Comment