Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 17, 22-27
As Jesus and his disciples were gathering in Galilee,
Jesus said to them,
“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men,
and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.”
And they were overwhelmed with grief.
When they came to Capernaum,
the collectors of the temple tax approached Peter and said,
“Does not your teacher pay the temple tax?”
“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?”
When he said, “From foreigners,” Jesus said to him,
“Then the subjects are exempt.
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.”
The subjects are exempt
1. Overwhelmed with grief. Jesus tells the apostles the truth of what is going to happen to him. Sometimes it is the truth that grieves us, but the key is to accept it. We all have wounds to heal and pains to talk about. And we also have situations to face, mistakes we’ve made that we must express. We’ve stored up pains and worries that haunt us and often keep us awake at night. How important it is to express what we’re going through and work on it! When you don’t talk about what is happening to you, it comes out anyway through actions that can be very violent, hurting you and those around you. Don’t fall into the trap of hurtful actions or addictions as the answer to questions and situations that are bottled up in your head and in your heart. Don’t let drugs, or pornography or alcohol or gambling or whatever, be the expression of what you can’t express in words. Face the situation and talk about what is happening to you because everything that is talked about has a solution.
2. Tax collectors. You will always run into people who are constantly watching your life to pick on you or mark your faults, they are constantly looking at you life to judge you. The problem isn’t that there are people like that, the problem is that you are affected by what those people say. They are tax collectors who say things like, “you shouldn’t behave like that”, “how can you do that?”, “you shouldn’t have married that person”, “you shouldn’t have become a priest”, “you can’t live there”. There are always people around who only look at the lives of others to condemn them. Don’t worry, because God is more merciful and just than they are.
3. Perspective. The story goes that Julius was a man who lived in the countryside, near an orange grove. It was beautiful place, but he was tired of living in the countryside, watching over the cows, getting the tractor ready early in the morning to work the land. He was tired of seeing the vast extension of land and fighting off mosquitoes in summer. He decided to sell his farm to live in an apartment in the city, so he could enjoy the city of Tucumán and go to the bars where he could have those cups of coffees he liked.
He asked a real estate agent to arrange the sale of his land. A few days later, this man showed him the advertisement he had designed: “Great land for sale in the orange groves area. A sunrise that you can see over the mountains, crystal clear water that runs through the farm giving peace and freshness; fertile land suitable for most crops, and peace and quiet that cannot be found even in great forests”. When the owner heard all this, he said, “but that’s what I’m really looking for! I forgot that I had it so close to me already. I’d better not sell”. There are times when we have the wrong perspective of our life, and we aren’t aware of the real value of what we have around us. Look for what you are passionate about. Remember what you have chosen for your life and dare again to commit yourself to what you are passionate about.
Always remember that something good is on the way!
God bless you and be with you in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
