This commentary reads three portraits of belonging: a pagan king unknowingly used by God, a young church on fire for the One who chose them, and Christ’s question about whose image is on the coin, to show how the liturgy of the Mass constantly teaches us whose we are and why we were made.
First Reading (Isaiah 45:1, 4-6): God anoints the pagan king Cyrus to liberate His people: “I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not,” because the Lord is sovereign over every nation and history.
Second Reading (1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b): Paul thanks God for the Thessalonians’ “work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope,” reminding them that the Gospel came to them “not in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit.”
Gospel (Matthew 22:15-21): Faced with a trap about the census tax, Jesus asks, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” and answers, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God,” for whoever bears God’s image belongs to God.
Liturgical Connection: From the opening procession to the dismissal, the Mass is constantly reminding us whose image we bear. If God can take dead bread and wine and make their essence Himself, how much more can He do with living beings created in His image?
Key Message: Some of us drift through life like Cyrus, used by God despite ourselves; some of us live like the Thessalonians, on fire because we know who chose us. The liturgy hands us, every Sunday, the answer to who created us and why. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
