\u201cRepay to\nCaesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.\u201d The Gospel seems\nvery fitting considering the times we live in, a time when politics is\npolarized and pageantry. And yet, the Lord Jesus tells us \u201crepay to Caesar what\nbelongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have to\nkeep in mind that Jesus didn\u2019t die to inaugurate a nation or government. He\ncame to inaugurate the kingdom of God – God the Father\u2019s definitive rule over\nthe world – by dying on the Cross, revealing that the Father rules totally and\ncompletely in the God-man. And the kingdom isn\u2019t one of legislatures or\npoliticians; it is a kingdom of saying Yes to the Father, of being obedient to\nthe divine will revealed by Christ and entrusted to the Church. It\u2019s a kingdom\nwhere God will show Himself as the Judge of the Living and the Dead, a kingdom\nwhere no one will escape justice due to them. We Christians are called to be\ncitizens of the kingdom: to see that our salvation comes from God and God alone\nto whom all glory and praise be!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is\nthrough this lens that we see what the Lord Jesus teaches today. We can love\nour country because our country is where we dialogue with everyone else. The\nCatechism teaches that we are obligated to pay our taxes for the common good:\nfor defense, the economy, infrastructure, and so on. But we shouldn\u2019t deify our\ngovernment, we shouldn\u2019t worship our country. No. A Christian loves their\ncountry precisely because their country provides them a home on earth; a place\nto sleep, a place to be safe, a place to study and work, a place to know others\nwho bear God\u2019s image and likeness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But at the\nend of the day, we have to realize that no country is perfect. Our government\nand country cannot save us from the real injustices of the world: sin. Yes, we\nhave a duty to oppose evils and injustices. But whatever evils we stand against\nand oppose are ultimately caused by us sinners rebelling against God\u2019s law. And\nthe only way to remedy our hearts isn\u2019t by forming a perfect government or an\nideal country – that\u2019s impossible when we have a government made up of sinners.\nThe remedy is to be citizens of God\u2019s kingdom through repentance and conversion\nso that we may give to God what belongs to Him: ourselves, the true coins\nbearing the image of God who is Christ Jesus our Lord. For Christ Jesus allows\nus to be both for God and country, but, as He Himself shows, God must always\ncome first lest we start worshipping a nation ruled by sinners rather than a\nkingdom ruled by the Almighty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joseph\nYuson <\/strong>\u2013 St. Joseph\nSeminary, Edmonton, Alberta<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fot. Joakim\nHonkasal \/Unsplash.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-strona-glowna-najnowsze","category-strona-glowna-slider"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n