Tuesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Saint Boniface (d. 754)

Readings of the day: RB 7:51-54

Mass: 2 P 3:12-15a, 17-18; Resp Ps 90; Mk 12:13-17

Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.

Jesus’ words to his detractors takes me to a recent trip to a local credit union. While waiting for my traveling companion, I perused a lovely little book full of wedding pictures. There were professional photos of handsome couples donned in wedding garb, some included canine friends also outfitted in their best duds: on the rugged coast, in a barn, in someone’s backyard, and the creative—amongst majestic redwoods with a chandelier hanging from a low branch! I enjoyed looking at the photos and was thankful for the time to take a peek. It did dawn on me, though, that not one wedding photo was taken in a church.

I pass on today’s Magnificat reflection, from a homily by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of Genoa, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, preached August 10, 2016, Feast of St Lawrence, (trans. J. Cottini):

Faced with the current challenges, our continent falters, because it is lost and frightened; lost, because it no longer knows who it is, having cut itself off from its cultural and religious roots, to the point of feeling ashamed of its own traditions, symbols, and rites. It this merely a deplorable cultural involution, or is it a debt paid to obscure entities? A secularity that becomes secularism is obtuse, unable to interpret the spirit of a people or its history: Where can it lead? The continent is also frightened, because it denies itself and therefore has nothing more to say in the global dialogue, nothing beyond the usual useless and ‘correct’ stereotypes. We speak of values, but what are they? On what are they founded?

May the Lord help us to return to wisdom, that wisdom that is not afraid of God, that sees in Jesus its true hope, that recognizes that Christianity—far from any mumbled obscurantism—has introduced an element of spiritual freedom into human life that is capable of elevating individuals, peoples, and nations. The world crisis is first of all a spiritual crisis. Failure to admit this signals a failure to comprehend the seriousness of things! We need to start thinking with our heads again! Faith does not eliminate intelligence, but rather seeks it, stimulates it, opens it to reality. Faith asks intelligence to actualize it in history, it encourages intelligence to reawaken from sleep and react to the world of slogans and lies…All true greatness is born from grace—this we must invoke, of this we must live.

May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our hearts,

that we may know what is the hope that belongs to his call.

ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA.

(Gospel Acclamation, Mass)