When my wife can’t get our three little playful boys to shower and brush their teeth, her last resort is to call me. And with my well modulated, booming dad voice, I say, “Boys, obey Mommy!” And like magic, they comply immediately.

Children not only need a parent’s gentle voice to reassure them, but also a stern voice to challenge them to grow and mature. These are both voices of love.

Do you still fear God? I’m not talking about being afraid that He will punish you because He doesn’t need to. We punish ourselves when we sin and don’t obey His will. Just like our little boys who will suffer with their smelly armpits and decaying teeth when they don’t obey their mom.

Have a sense of awe and reverence for God’s voice. Let your healthy kind of fear prompt you to set things right. Remember, the Father’s voice is not against you. Obey because whatever the Father tells you is always for your own good. 

Velden Lim (veldenlim.firedup@gmail.com)

Reflect:

Do you always insist on your way? Let God have His way and see your life change for the better.

Father, humble my heart and teach me to recognize Your greatness and sovereignty over my life.

St. Clare of Assisi, virgin, pray for us.

To fulfill our destiny, God wants us to love and serve Him. He also wants us to avoid the trials and sufferings that result from breaking the moral law. Furthermore, He wants us to receive the blessings that flow into our lives when we live as He has designed us to live. 

¹² Moses said to the people: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord, your God, ask of you but to fear the Lord, your God, and follow his ways exactly, to love and serve the Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, ¹³ to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord which I enjoin on you today for your own good? ¹⁴ Think! The heavens, even the highest heavens, belong to the Lord, your God, as well as the earth and everything on it. ¹⁵ Yet in his love for your fathers the Lord was so attached to them as to choose you, their descendants, in preference to all other peoples, as indeed he has now done. ¹⁶ Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked. ¹⁷ For the Lord, your God, is the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who has no favorites, accepts no bribes; ¹⁸ who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and befriends the alien, feeding and clothing him. ¹⁹ So you too must befriend the alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ The Lord, your God, shall you fear, and him shall you serve; hold fast to him and swear by his name. ²¹ He is your glory, he, your God, who has done for you those great and terrible things which your own eyes have seen. ²² Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy strong, and now the Lord, your God, has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.”

Responsorial Psalm | Psalm 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20

R: Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.

¹² Glorify the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion. ¹³ For he has strengthened the bars of your gates; he has blessed your children within you. (R) ¹⁴ He has granted peace in your borders; with the best of wheat he fills you. ¹⁵ He sends forth his command to the earth; swiftly runs his word! (R) ¹⁹ He has proclaimed his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. ²⁰ He has not done thus for any other nation; his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia. (R)   

Gospel | Matthew 17:22-27

Today’s Gospel is a strange story. Jesus told Peter to catch a fish wherein he would find a coin in its mouth to pay the temple tax. Jesus did not think He should pay this tax, yet He did so to avoid offending the officials. But there were times when Jesus acted contrary to others’ expectations. What is the difference? As far as Jesus was concerned, no great principle was at stake in this situation. When the Pharisees accused Him of breaking the Sabbath, He did not do what they wanted because He wanted to put love above the law.

Gospel Acclamation

God has called you through the Gospel to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²² As Jesus and his disciples were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men, ²³ and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were overwhelmed with grief. ²⁴ When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax approached Peter and said, “Does not your teacher pay the temple tax?” ²⁵ “Yes,” he said. When he came into the house, before he had time to speak, Jesus asked him, “What is your opinion, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax? From their subjects or from foreigners?” ²⁶ When he said, “From foreigners,” Jesus said to him, “Then the subjects are exempt. ²⁷ But that we may not offend them, go to the sea, drop in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up. Open its mouth and you will find a coin worth twice the temple tax. Give that to them for me and for you.”

Read the Bible in one year! Read 2 MACCABEES 7 - 8 today.

Somewhere in Galilee, Jesus began to talk about His impending passion, death, and rising—a topic that caused the disciples to be “overwhelmed with grief.” But in Capernaum, a tax collector acting as auditor asked brazenly: “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

Two points for us to consider: First, the tax collector/auditor did not ask the Lord. He questioned Peter. Second, his question was not really a question. He had already decided that the teacher did not pay any taxes. All he added was a question mark.

How would you feel when, after doing something close to miraculous or at least something noble and laudable, someone heavily breathes all over you asking you about something so mundane and so ill-timed? They were in Capernaum, mind you, so far from the temple precincts.

The Lord was busy ministering to the sick and the healthy, and everyone, without exception, was really hungry for spiritual sustenance. But there came the pesky collector turned auditor asking Him for His tax returns. He had just revealed something monumental and most consequential—His passion and death—and He was being audited about something so material and earthly.

The Lord would not be manipulated by money games. He proved Himself up to the machinations of power brokers and self-entitled civil servants (tax collectors who most likely took advantage of both Roman authorities and local subjugated people of Palestine then). He did the unthinkable. He acted according to what was insinuated by the more-than-just-curious questioner. He was quick to the draw. He gave the taxman what he wanted. But by doing another miracle on top of what was seemingly mundane and material, He gave him and everyone else a glimpse of the God who is Lord of both the mundane and the miraculous! 

Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB

reflection question

How do you let God be the Lord of the mundane in your life? 

You, Lord, are the God of all. Reign in my life. Amen.

Today, I pray for: ______________________________________