Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Giving God What is God’s

What is Caesar’s? What is God’s? How do we answer this question in our lives today? What did Jesus imply in his answer to repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. What really belongs to God?

In just over a week, our St. Francis community will celebrate 25 years of ACTS (Adoration, Community, Theology, and Service). During these years, there have been over 75 adult retreat teams that have spent 13 weeks each time “getting their act together”—forming themselves, paying attention to how God is working in their lives, how the Holy Spirit is animating them to use their gifts for the sake of the community, and in praising and thanking God for who they are “becoming” as a result of these actions, these ACTS!

For each retreat that is given, there is an equal number of retreatants who experience God’s love both personally and intensely. Just listen to the hundreds of parish members who have attended. They will tell you boldly and loudly that we bear the image of God and are to give to God what is God’s—our lives.

In very real ways, this is our experience of identifying and proclaiming what is God’s! All we have is a gift from God. Each of us, conceived in love, is a gift from God in our very being. All that we become through all of God’s formative processes—our worship, our study, our prayer, our practice of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, our GIVING in every sense is acknowledging that all we have is a gift from God.

God’s work in our lives, God’s providential care is amazing and bounteous. For this, let us offer gratitude and praise. Let us be generous in our YES to using our gifts in service to others in our families, our vocations, our community, and our world!