Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle A

Is 45:1, 4-6
1 Thes 1:1-5b
Mt 22:15-21

The first reading emphasizes the fact that the Lord alone is God; there is no other. In a culture of death, that is precisely the truth that is denied. The battle between pro-life and pro-choice is really about the dominion of God. Is He Lord over human life or not? Abortion advocates more and more openly admit that abortion kills a child, but claim to have that right anyway. That is why John Paul II could write, “Life, especially human life, belongs only to God: for this reason whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself” (Evangelium Vitae, 9). Dr. James McMahon was an abortionist in Southern California and performed partial-birth abortions. When asked by the American Medical Association news how he justified doing it, he admitted that the baby was a child, but then said there was a more important question, “Who owns the child? It’s got to be the mother,” he explained.

In the Gospel’s familiar account of Jesus’ answer about taxes, Jesus says that the coin belongs to Caesar because it bears his image. What, then, belongs to God? That which bears his image, namely, human life itself, including that of Caesar! Jesus teaches here the hierarchy of Divine and human authority. Christians must be good citizens; but citizens and their governing authorities alike must obey God, acknowledging his dominion over human life, and protecting it.