TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Year A

Readings

First Reading
Is 45:1, 4–6

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 96:1, 3, 4–5, 7–8, 9–10

Second Reading
1 Thes 1:1–5b

Gospel
Mt 22:15–21

Meditation on Today’s Readings

Taken from the Vatican II Sunday and Weekday Missal
Written by Celia Sirois

Any discussion of today’s Gospel must begin with a disclaimer: this text does not address the question of the relationship between church and state. It speaks instead to what is right relationship between the human community and the one God, who is Lord, besides whom “there is no other.”

As usual in Matthew the treachery of Jesus’ opponents is transparent. Their yes-or-no question aims to entrap him, but Jesus is not so easily taken. He asks for a Roman coin and puts a question of his own: “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” This is the key to his meaning. If the image of Caesar stamped on a coin means that the coin belongs to Caesar, then the image of God stamped on each and every human being means that each and every one belongs to God. This is the understanding of Isaiah too when, in today’s reading, he declares that Cyrus the Persian is the Lord’s anointed (i.e., Messiah). Even Cyrus belongs to God, “though you knew me not,” God tells him. It is the conviction that all belong to the one God that likewise sends Paul to the Gentiles of Thessalonica to bring them the Gospel “in power and in the Holy Spirit.”

The copyright for the Sunday Missal Introductions is:
Copyright (c) 2001, Daughters of St. Paul
The copyright for the Weekday Missal Introduction is:
Copyright (c) 2002, Daughters of St. Paul