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“Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s; render to God what is God’s.”
Living a God-centered life is not a simple, cut-and-dry proposition. While we are indeed created to live forever with God in heaven, we must also, on any given day, tend to any number of duties and responsibilities here on earth.
We must give both heaven and earth their respective dues.
How does this work? How do we achieve this balance in our won lives?
To use the phrase: are we supposed to rob from Peter to pay Paul? No, we do not need to deprive one to pay tribute to another! Are we supposed to give to God from one hand and give to the world from the other? No, we are challenged to use both our hands in such a way that gives justice to both the things of earth as well as the things of heaven.
While not overstating the obvious lesson in today’s Gospel, service to heaven and service to earth are, in fact, two sides of the same coin! We are ultimately faithful to both “Caesar” and to “God” by treating our brothers and sisters with justice…by giving them their due.
Francis de Sales wrote:
“Be just and equitable in all your actions. Always put yourself in your neighbor's place and your neighbor in yours, and then you will judge rightly. Imagine yourself the seller when you buy and the buyer when you sell and you will sell and buy justly…you lose nothing by living generously, nobly, courteously and with a royal, just and reasonable heart. Resolve to examine your heart often to see if it is such toward your neighbor, as you would want your neighbor to be toward you if you were in your neighbor's place. This is the touchstone of true reason.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, Chapter 36
Giving others their due is not only about being faithful to the debt of love we owe to one another, but it also can also have very practical ramifications. Francis de Sales penned these words in 1604: "I see that you have a debt…repay this as soon as you possibly can, and be as careful as you can never to withhold from others anything that belongs to them.” (Stopp, Selected Letters, p. 69)
Whether the obligations are great or small, we must strive to always give what is due to our brothers and sisters. We must strive to treat one another reasonably, fairly, humbly, honestly and justly. In so doing we render to “Caesar” what is “Caesar’s” and we also render to God what is God's.
In the Salesian tradition, we never really have to choose between tending to the things of heaven or the things of earth. By meeting the needs of our brothers and sisters, we tend to both the things of earth and to the things of heaven at the same time, in the process “proving our faith, laboring in love, and showing constancy in our hope in Jesus Christ”.
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“Take care to guard against all greed…”
Greed is defined as “an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.”
What is important to note is that greed is not equated with merely possessing material wealth, but that greed is also about having an “excessive” or inordinate desire to possess material wealth. It is not about the amount of the wealth; it is about the size – and intensity - of the desire for wealth.
Francis de Sales certainly understood this distinction. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, he wrote:
“I willingly grant that you may take care to increase your wealth and resources, provided this is done not only justly but properly and charitably. However, if you are strongly attached to the goods you possess, too solicitous about them, set your heart on them, always have them in your thoughts and fear losing them with a strong, anxious fear, then, believe me, you are suffering from a kind of fever. If you find your heart very desolated and afflicted at the loss of property, believe me, you love it too much…” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 14, p. 163)
The Gospel parable is a classic example of what Francis de Sales described. The rich man is not condemned because he is rich; the rich man is condemned because he does not even consider sharing his good fortune – his rich harvest – with others.
Note the distinction that Jesus makes, however. “Guard against all greed”. Greed is not limited to material possessions. Many of the things to which we cling – many of the things about which we have inordinate desires to keep for ourselves - aren’t material at all: our time, our opinions, our plans, our preferences, our comforts, our routines, our ways of seeing things and our ways of doing things are just a sampling of the many things to which we excessively cling.
What kinds of greed – in any form, in all forms - might we need to be careful to guard against today?
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“He is our peace…”
In a letter to Mother de Chantal, Francis de Sales wrote:
“I entreat you to keep very close to Jesus Christ and your Our Lady and to your good angel in all your business, so that the multiplicity of your many affairs may not make you anxious nor their difficulties dismay you. Do things one by one as best you can and apply your mind loyally but gently and sweetly. If God gives you good issue, we shall bless him for it; if his pleasure should be otherwise, we will bless him all the same. And it will be enough for you that you did your best in complete good faith, since Our Lord and reason do not demand results in things we do, but only our faithful and whole-hearted cooperation, endeavor and diligence; for these depend on us, whereas success does not. God will bless your good intention in undertaking this journey...” (Stopp, Selected Letters, pp. 195-196)
Jesus is the embodiment of this spirit. In success or setback, in acceptance or rejection, in good times or in bad times Jesus always possessed inner peace in the midst of the multiplicity of his affairs; his “whole-hearted cooperation, endeavor and diligence” were united to his Father’s will. What Jesus did or did not accomplish throughout his earthly ministry was not nearly as important as the fidelity of his relationship with his Father.
So, whatever you accomplish – or do not accomplish – just this day, try above all things to do this one thing.
To remain in peace.
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“My strength and my courage is the Lord: I am confident and unafraid...”
Today’s Gospel reminds us that we can never be certain as to when we will need to provide an accounting to God for the lives we have lived. We will never know for sure when we will need to demonstrate how well we have made good use of the gifts, the talents, the blessings – and above all, the life – God has given us.
When that day, that hour or that moment comes, will we be ready?
This consideration is sobering. The reality that we will all die one day and appear before the judgment of God can be more than a bit unsettling. Francis de Sales himself said that we should fear death, however, he challenged us not to be afraid of death. If we focus too much upon the inevitability of our last moment on this earth, the fear – and more importantly, the anxiety - it produces may prevent us from living fully each and every present moment that will precede our last.
As members of the Salesian family we are challenged to be “confident and unafraid” when it comes to facing our mortality. The same God who will judge us at the end of our lives is the same God who gives us the strength and courage to do the best we can throughout our lives. Not surprisingly, Francis de Sales offers us the counsel we need to live our mortal lives as best we can with confidence and without fear.
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“…that you be filled with the fullness of God...”
Some things are worth repeating. In the context of the exhortation in Paul’s Letter to Ephesians, let us revisit some advice that we heard just two days ago that Francis de Sales offered to Jane de Chantal over 400 years ago:
“I entreat you to keep very close to Jesus Christ and your Our Lady and to your good angel in all your business, so that the multiplicity of your many affairs may not make you anxious nor their difficulties dismay you. Do things one by one as best you can and apply your mind loyally but gently and sweetly. If God gives you good issue, we shall bless him for it; if his pleasure should be otherwise, we will bless him all the same. And it will be enough for you that you did your best in complete good faith, since Our Lord and reason do not demand results in things we do, but only our faithful and whole-hearted cooperation, endeavor and diligence; for these depend on us, whereas success does not. God will bless your good intention in undertaking this journey...” (Stopp, Selected Letters, pp. 195-196)
Insofar as we are up to our eyeballs in the details of life, it is all-too-easy to feel frequently that we have little or nothing to show for our efforts. Amid all the responsibilities and obligations that come from our vocations and avocations, it is awfully easy to wonder if we really do make a difference in this world. At the end of any given day, it is an all-too-common experience to ask ourselves what have we really accomplished?
On days like these, recall the words of St. Paul: “Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations…”
Today – just today – “do things one by one as best you can”. As for the results, leave them in the hands of a God who will “grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit”.
Today – just today – “do things one by one as best you can”. As for the results, leave them in the hands of a God who will “grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit”.
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“Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received...”
What call have we received? We are sons and daughters of God; we are brothers and sisters of Jesus; we are temples of God’s Holy Spirit.
How do we live in a manner worthy of this call? St. Paul is clear and unambiguous: “Live with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
In today’s Responsorial Psalm, we prayed the words, “Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face”. How do we know if we are making progress in our efforts to “live in a manner worthy of the call” we have received? Look to see if other people see in our thoughts, our affections, our attitudes and our actions something of the face of God.
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“Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of God’s gift....”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
God has great expectations for us: “Life on high with Jesus Christ”. God – through his mercy, that is, through his generosity – also gives us the grace we need to strive to meet those expectations. How can we possibly show our appreciation for the “grace that was given to each of us according to the measure of God’s gift”? Perhaps St. Francis de Sales said it best. “The measure of love is to love without measure.”
God’s love in our regard is certainly without measure. To what degree can the same be said of our love for one another?
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