Suy Niệm bài đọc thứ Ba tuần thứ 9 Thường Niên

 Suy Niệm bài đọc thứ Ba tuần thứ 9 Thường Niên

Qua bài đọc thứ nhất hôm nay, chúng ta thấy bà con của ông Tôbit đã đau buồn, khổ sở vì một tai nạn không may đã xảy ra cho ông ta và làm ông ta phải chịu cảnh mù loà. Như câu chuyện ông Tôbit đã kể lại về vuộc đời của mình, chúng ta có thể chắc chắn là sẽ đặt câu một hỏi với Thiên Chúa một cách khắc nghiệt và cay cú: là tại sao Thiên Chúa đã để cho một người hết sức Đạo đức như Ông Tôbit đã phải chịu những sự khốn khó như thế…. chúng ta biết rằng ông ta thật là một người tốt bụng, biết kính sợ Thiên Chúa và yêu thương mọi người, đã đã không biêt mệt mỏi khi chôn cất những người bị giết hại ngoài đồng. Trước bị mù đôi mắt, ông đã làm những công việc bác ái không biết mệt mỏi, thế nhưng tại sao những điều xấu này lại xảy ra cho ông, một người tốt lành biết kính sợ Thiên Chúa?

(Như chúng ta được biết trong trong sách Tôbia, thì ông Tôbit là một Người Do Thái rất trung thành với Thiên Chúa, một trong những "người nghèo của Chúa", như là để nói rằng một trong những người bất chấp mọi thảm họa, nguy hiểm trong cuộc ông lưu vong vì chính trị và chiến tranh, những vẫn cực kỳ trung thành với Thiên Chúa. Thế nhưng ông Tobit đã không bao giờ thắc mắc, và phàn nàn với Thiên Chúa vì sự lưu vong, li tán gia đình hay thắc mắc về tai nạn và hậu quả đem đến sự mù loà, và tàn tật của chính mình.)

Trong cuộc của chúng ta, đôi lúc chúng ta đã gặp phải những nghịc cảnh đáng buồn, những tạ nạn hay sự không may đã xảy đến với chúng ta hay gia đình, chúng ta đã có những sự phản ứng ra sao trong tâm hồn của mỗi người hay trong cuộc sống của chúng ta. Những người yếu kém đíc tin hoặc không có niềm tin thường có lẽ sễ đặt câu hỏi tại sao Thiên Chúa đã lại để cho những điều đó xấu xảy ra cho họ để họ phải gánh nhận những sự kém may mắn này và sự thất vọng. Còn chúng ta, chúng phải có một đức tin vững chãi để tránh những tiến dèm phà không tốy và chúng ta cũng phải biết cố gắng, can đảm để học hỏi và bắt chước ông Tôbit là biết đặt tất cả sự hy vọng và niềm Tin của chúng ta vào Thiên Chúa.

Lạy Chúa Giêsu, Chúa đang sống giữa chúng con, Chúa là niềm hy vọng và vinh quang của chúng con. Xin Chúa ban cho chúng con những ân sủng để chúng con tin rằng tất cả những gì xẩy đến cho chúng con sẽ được tốt đẹp, vì Chúa đã toàn thắng thế gian này.

Reflection SG

Many accidents happen in this world, some very minor, others more devastating. All of them call forth different reactions in human hearts and lives. People with a weaker faith or no faith at all, will often question why God allows such things to happen. Tobit’s kinsmen grieved at his blindness, the result of an unfortunate simple accident.

As Tobit recounts his story, we discover an element in it which would certainly make some people question God more harshly. He tells us that he was fatigued from burying the dead. He was obviously a good man, engaged, just before the accident to his eyes, in doing works of charity. Why do bad things happen to good people? Tobit was a faithful Jew, one of “the poor of the Lord”, that is to say one of those, who in spite of the great disaster of being in exile because of Middle-East politics and warfare, remained extraordinarily faithful to God.

As Tobit did not question God over the exile, so he did not question God over his own accident and his consequent disability. Let us learn from Tobit to place all our hope in God.

Lord Jesus, you are alive in our midst, our hope of glory. Grant us the grace to believe that all will be well, for you have overcome the world.

Opening Prayer:

Dear Lord Jesus, I thank you for the grace of coming before you in prayer. I thank you for the faith that has made me desire to pray, but I also ask you to increase my faith. May my contact with your word help me to rely ever more deeply on you and less on my own strength. Please open my mind and heart to hear what you wish to tell me.

Encountering Christ:

1. Knowing Their Hypocrisy: The Pharisees called Jesus a good teacher, but they had no desire to learn. The Pharisees and the Herodians were laying a trap for Jesus—and a clever one it was. If Jesus affirmed that they should pay the Roman tax, he would lose the favor of the people who resented Roman rule. If he declared it unnecessary to pay the tax, they could accuse him before the Romans of being an insurrectionist. Either answer would serve their purpose of undermining Jesus’s message. Their flattery was insulting. However, their indifference to truth was the real tragedy. If we want to encounter Jesus and learn from him, we must approach him with a sincere heart.

2. Bring Me a Denarius: Hypocrites are often guilty of the very thing for which they blame others. Jesus asked for a denarius, a Roman coin. He had none; they did. Carrying a regime’s currency is an implicit sign of support, even if begrudgingly. The Pharisees and the Herodians did not like the Romans; however, they did like the power the Romans allowed them to retain. Jesus was a threat to their moral authority, and thus ultimately to their power. That is why they wanted to be rid of him; hence their clever trap. Eventually, they would even cry, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). Conversely, Jesus in his poverty showed neither a dependence upon nor a fear of the Romans. He accepted the generosity and support of others, such as the holy women who provided for him, but his focus was elsewhere (Luke 8:3). He even went so far as to forget to eat as long as he fulfilled his mission; that is, providing “food” of which the apostles knew not (John 4:32).

3. Repay to Caesar What Belongs to Caesar: Our Lord’s answer to his adversaries not only brilliantly foiled their clever trap, but it also laid the foundation for the Church’s relationship with temporal powers. The Church, following the model of her Lord, has always taught us to obey legitimate civil authority (Romans 13:1-3). We should even pray for those in power (1 Timothy 2:2). However, obedience to God must always take precedence over civil law when the two are in conflict. That is why, when commanded by the Sanhedrin to stop preaching in the name of Jesus, St. Peter replied, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). In the encyclical “God is Love,” Pope Benedict XVI teaches that Catholic social doctrine does not seek power over the state; rather, it seeks to contribute to society’s ethical formation (cf. n. 28). The Church does not so much seek to overthrow Caesar as to convert him from within.

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus Christ, help me to approach you repeatedly with a sincere heart. May I confess my sins to receive your mercy, and may I implore your help to receive your grace. Also, help me to be a good citizen who honestly and responsibly fulfills my civic duties. Let me remember that to serve my country well, I must first obey you. Help me to love my country and community while keeping my heart firmly rooted in heaven.

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will pray for the political leaders of my country.

REFLECTION

Think of our national, local, community, family and personal problems today. They often result from not giving to God what is God's. The bitterness, prejudice, hatreds and injustices all around us are the overgrowth of our pride and greed, the rejection of God's law in our daily living. It is the Lord, and he only, who can solve these

dilemmas, who can teach us the way to go, who speaks most powerfully to us through his own example. The power to cure our ills is offered to us. The power over evil is given to us, but we do not accept it. We do not give to God what is God's. We do not really let the Lord fill us with his power. We put all kinds of obstacles in his way, just as the Pharisees did. We try to find easy substitutes for Christ, but they do not work. The saints, who gave to God what is God's, spent hours daily listening to him, in prayer, in studying the Gospel of Jesus with the inner heart, in following his example carefully.

God asks for a service which is freely given, and which never lessens, no matter what. Yes, no matter what, we must keep our trust in God and remain faithful to him in bad times as well as in good. Jesus is the only answer to all our problems. So let us turn to him for guidance and strength every single day of our lives.

REFLECTION

Taxation of the Jewish people by the Roman colonizer-state was a burning issue among the Jews of Jesus' day. The Pharisees were bitterly opposed to taxation by Rome and they bring the subject up to Jesus.

Jesus points out to the Pharisees that the coin bears the head of the Roman emperor, Tiberius Caesar. "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar," he tells the Pharisees, "and to God what belongs to God." He's telling them in effect: The Romans are here because originally you invited them. You've benefited from their protection and rule and peace. You use their coinage. You have an obligation to pay taxes to Rome.

Jesus' answer, however, is not absolute, in the sense that it's not applicable to all such situations. For example, a few years later it definitely would not be applicable. For the Roman emperors would begin to think of themselves as gods and would demand worship. Therefore, Christians could no longer give to the emperor what the emperor claimed. Giving to the emperor what belongs to him does not therefore mean that Christians should isolate their political and civic lives from their faith.

Every political act has a moral dimension. The Christian has to judge the morality of these acts.

Tuesday 9th Week in Ordinary Time, Y-1

In today’s Gospel, Jesus escapes from a trap with one of his most famous one-liners: “Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” We should not read this as though there is a clearly-demarcated political realm that belongs to the Caesars of the world, and a clearly-demarcated spiritual realm that belongs to God. And we certainly shouldn’t read it in the modern mode—that the public arena belongs to politics, while religion is relegated to the private dimension.

No, this won’t do, precisely because God is God. He’s not a being in or above the world, nor one reality among many. God is the sheer act of being itself, which necessarily pervades, influences, grounds, and has to do with everything, even as he transcends everything in creation.

God is the deepest source for everything in life from sports to law to the arts to science and to medicine. What has seized the lawyer (at his best) is a deep passion for justice, and God is justice itself; what has seized the doctor (at his best) is a deep passion for alleviating suffering, and God is love itself. Everything comes from God and returns to God.