Collect for 29th Sunday of Year A

COLLECT SERIES

 

The Mass: Collect Series Icon

COLLECT

 

The Collect for the 29th Sunday of Year reads as follows:

Almighty ever- living God,

Grant that we may always conform our will to Yours

And serve Your majesty in sincerity of heart.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,

who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God for ever and ever.

 

 

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

In making this prayer tangible for during the week the following reflection questions

1.How do I conform my will to Yours?

2. How can I conform my will to Yours this coming week?

3. What does it mean to me to serve God’s majesty?

4. What are the hindrances/obstacles which prevent me serving Your majesty in sincerity of heart?

5. What does sincerity of heart mean to me in relation to my relationship with God?

 

GOSPEL REFLECTION

The Gospel is from Matthew 22:15-21. In this Gospel the following issues are highlighted for us to consider:

1.    1. The dual role of being a Christian and a good citizen.
2.    The nature of our intentions in relation to other people.
3.    The importance of honest communication.

 

Let us examine each of these now.

1.    The dual role of being a Christian and a good citizen.

God's plan for humanity man on earth was that humanity should live in the society of his fellowmen. It is necessary that society must be governed, there must be authority which will direct the actions of the component members toward the common good, which common good is principally, though not exclusively, the material welfare of the members as a whole.

As his ultimate end, however, humanity has his spiritual welfare. This government, this temporal power to rule and direct the human groups or societies or states, comes, therefore, from God for it is his will that such societies should exist. The answer of our Lord explicitly restates this fundamental norm of the divine natural law. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's;" the state authorities have a right to the obedience and cooperation in all things that tend to the material welfare of the state, provided always the spiritual welfare of the members is not impeded by the rulers' demands.

As a partly spiritual being we are destined to be a citizen of a spiritual eternal kingdom, and while on this earth, we have both the obligation and the possibility of preparing ourselves for citizenship in that kingdom. And since this kingdom is of a higher and much more important nature, man's primary aim in life must be to reach that kingdom. He must, in other words, find out and fulfill his duties toward God; he must "give to God what is God's."

This dual citizenship of man and the dual obligations that arise from it are the common knowledge of all from the natural law but are made more explicit still in divine revelation of which today's answer, given by Christ to the Pharisees, is a precise and perfect resume. We have duties to God and duties to our country and the fulfillment of the latter is part of the fulfillment of the former. We Christians have no doubts as to our obligations under these two headings. We fulfill our duties to God by being faithful, loyal, active members of the spiritual kingdom, the Church, which Christ established on earth in order to lead us to our eternal kingdom. We fulfill our duties to our country by loyally obeying the just laws of the State, by paying all lawful taxes, and by contributing our share, whenever called on, toward the common good.

2.      The nature of our intentions in relation to other people

In today’s Gospel we note that the Pharisees wanted to set a trap for Jesus. Note too, that they gather their disciples too, hoping that perhaps some of them at least would turn away from Jesus assuming that, of course Jesus fell for their trap.  Jesus of course did not fall for their trap because He was aware of their malice.
So what about us?  Do we set traps for other people in our lives?  Does malice reside in us?   What is malice?

Malice as a definition means the desire to harm someone; ill will.  Malice means that there is a desire to inflict injury, harm, or suffering on another, either because of a hostile impulse or out of deep-seated meanness:

The desire begins in the heart and often means that the person is needy in some area of his/her life.

 

4.    Like many emotions, malice can be placed on a sliding scale, but it is still malice.  It can start out small but it gathers momentum in our hearts if we do not check it constantly. We need to examine the reasons why we do a particular action/sin against ourselves and others.   We need to bring our heart to Jesus who can read our secret intentions.  Bearing ill will towards our neighbour is not putting into practice the commandment to love- to love God, our neighbour and ourselves.  It is important to remember that when ill will resides in our hearts, it is like a cancer- it will spread and not only can we do harm to others but we also can do harm to our physical, emotional and spiritual health.

3. The importance of honest communication.

We are taught to communicate from our earliest years.  However, what we have learned may not necessarily be a healthy and honest communication pattern.  Learning to communicate honestly is vital for our own happiness and for our relationships.

Sadly however, many people in society do not engage in honest communication.  It may be out of ignorance to know how to communicate honestly or it may be that they have continues a communication pattern that they have had most of their lives without examining and reviewing it. 
The good news for us is that we can, with commitment and work change our communication patterns to a healthier style and learn to be honest in our communication.
For example: Some people are invited to a party/ office party or dinner party. They really do not want to attend.  Instead of declining the invitation politely, they fear saying no. Instead, because of this fear, they attend a party to which they did not want to attend.  Sometimes people make up an excuse tor not attending the party and later are trapped in themselves from guilt because they know they have lied.  They may also be trapped later as they do not remember the excuse they gave.

Jesus reminds us in scripture to say yes when we mean yes and no when we mean no Anything else comes from the evil one.  This is in essence honest communication.  We do not have to make excuses or attend parties that we do not want to attend.  We do not have to say yes when we mean no or vice versa.  Being truthful and honest helps us live with a clear conscience spiritually but it also nourishes our emotional and physical wellbeing.

Returning to the Gospel of today, we may ask why did the Pharisees want to trap Jesus?  Why did they feel threatened by Jesus?  Why did they gather the disciples to come with them?  When we ponder these questions, we can acknowledge that not only did they feel inadequate, threatened that their status was changing, fearful that they may need to examine their lives and change, wanted to have a power game with Jesus, force the disciples to choose that we, too need to examine our lives and see how malice appears and is operative.  It may be subtle but it can live there. 

Today therefore we are challenged by Jesus to examine our lives, to explore our intentions of our hearts and examine when/where malice exists in us.  We are to learn to review our communication pattern and learn to be honest before Him and before others as well as ourselves.  We are also to remember that we have dual citizenship both on earth and in Heaven but that Heaven is our true home.  We must live out the Gospel values.