22nd Sunday after Pentecost - The Pharisees set a trap for Jesus

Introït

If You consider iniquities, Lord, who shall stand before You? But mercy is in You, God of Israel. – Psalm. From the depths of the abyss I cried out to You, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Glory to the Father.

Reflection

We have just revived our confidence, singing that mercy is in God. It is He Himself who gives their pious accent to the prayers of His Church, because He wants to answer them. But we will be heard with her only on condition that we pray like her according to faith, that is, according to the teachings of the Gospel. To pray according to faith is therefore today to hand over to our companions their debts to us, if we ask to be absolved ourselves by the common Master.

Collect

O God, our refuge and strength, be propitious to the pious prayers of Your Church, You the very Author of piety, and grant that we may surely obtain what we ask according to faith. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord.

Epistle

Reading from the Epistle of the blessed Paul, Apostle, to the Philippians. Chap. 1.

My brethren, we have this confidence in the Lord Jesus that He who began the good in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is right that I should feel this way about all of you, because I have you in my heart as all having a share in my joy, both in my captivity and in the defense and strengthening of the Gospel. For God is my witness how much I love you all in the Heart of Jesus Christ. And my prayer is that your love may grow more and more in knowledge and in all understanding, so that you may discern what is best, be pure and walk without falling until the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

Reflection on the Epistle

St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians is full of confidence, overflowing with joy; and yet it shows us persecution raging against the Church and the enemy taking advantage of the storm to stir up evil passions within the very flock of Christ. The Apostle is in chains; the jealousy and betrayal of the false brethren add to his misery. But joy dominates over suffering in his heart, because he has reached that fullness of love where pain feeds divine charity better than any delight. For him, Jesus Christ is his life, and death is his gain; between death, which would respond to the deepest desire of his heart by returning him to Christ, and life, which would multiply his merits and the fruit of his works, he does not know what to choose. What can personal considerations have on him? His present joy, his future joy, is that Christ be known and glorified, no matter in what way. His expectation will not be confused, since life and death will only result in glorifying Christ in his flesh. Hence, in the soul of Paul, that sublime indifference which is the summit of the Christian life.

What tenderness the convert of Damascus lavishes on his brothers! “God is my witness, he says, how much I love you!” The aspiration that fills and absorbs him is that the God who began in them the good work par excellence, this work of Christian perfection that has reached its conclusion in the Apostle, should continue it and complete it in all for the day when Christ will appear in His glory.

Now the way for charity to develop in them surely is for it to grow in the understanding and knowledge of salvation, that is, in faith. It is faith, in fact, which forms the basis of all supernatural justice. A diminished faith can, therefore, only lead to a limited charity. How mistaken, then, are those men for whom concern for revealed truth does not go hand in hand with concern for love! Their Christianity boils down to believing only the least possible, to skilfully and endlessly narrowing the supernatural horizon for the sake of error. Charity, they say, is the queen of virtues; it inspires them to spare even the lie; to recognize error as having the same rights as truth, is for them the last word of the Christian civilization established on love. And they lose sight of the fact that the first object of charity, being God, who is the substantial truth, has no worse enemy than the lie; and they forget that one does not make an act of love by placing on the same footing the object loved and its mortal enemy.

Gospel

The Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew, Chap. XXII.

At that time, the Pharisees went away and took counsel to catch Jesus in His speech. And they sent to Him their disciples with Herodians, saying, “Master, we know that You are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, without regard to any man, for You do not regard the quality of persons; tell us therefore what You think of it: is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar or not?” Jesus said to them, knowing their malice, “Why do you tempt Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the change for the tribute.” They presented Him with a denarius; and Jesus said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” Then He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Reflection on the Gospel

It must be that the diminution of truths must be the very special danger of the last times, since the Church, in these weeks which are intended to represent the last days of the world, constantly brings us back to the prudence of the understanding as the great virtue which must then guard its sons. Today, in the Epistle, it was still intelligence and knowledge which were proposed to them, as the only things that could increase their love and perfect the work of their sanctification for the day of Christ. The Gospel concludes these lessons of the Apostle with an account of a fact taken from the history of the Savior, and gives them the authority which every example taken from the life of the divine Model brings with it. Jesus Christ, in fact, shows Himself to us as the example of His own in the snares set against their good faith by the plots of the wicked.

It was the last day of the public teachings of the Man-God, almost on the eve of His departure from this world. His enemies, so many times foiled in their tricks, tried a supreme effort. The Pharisees, who did not recognize Caesar’s rule and his right to tribute, joined with their opponents, the supporters of Herod and Rome, to ask Jesus the insidious question, “Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar or not?” If the Savior’s answer was negative, He incurred the wrath of the prince; if He pronounced Himself in the affirmative, He lost all credit in the minds of the people. With His divine prudence, Jesus disconcerted their plans.

The Apostles repeated after Jesus: “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s”; and if they proclaimed loudly that God should be obeyed rather than men, they added: “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power that does not proceed from God, and those that exist, God has established. Whoever therefore resists the power, resists the established order of God, and attracts damnation. Remain submissive, therefore, because it is necessary, submissive not only by the feeling of fear, but also by the duty of conscience. For the same reason you pay tribute to princes, because they are God’s ministers.”

How great, then, is not this dignity of human law, which makes the lawgiver the very vicar of God, at the same time as it spares the subject the humiliation of abasement before another man! But, for the law to be truly binding and lawful, it is clear that it must first of all conform to the prescriptions and defenses of the sovereign Being whose Will alone can give it its august character, by bringing it into the realm of the conscience. This is why there can be no law against God, against His Christ or His Church. As soon as God is no longer with the man who commands, the latter’s power is only brute force. The prince or the assembly that pretends to regulate the morals of a country against God, cannot give the sacred name of law to these tyrannical elucidations, which are a profanation unworthy of a Christian as well as of any free man.