Jesus says: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the Shema Prayer, the most famous prayer in the Jewish faith, and the equivalent of the Our Father in the Catholic Church. Then He goes further: “The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

The Romans thought Caesar a God and since Julius Caesar, this new religion began, but his legendary assassination in 42 BC proved definitively that he was not a god.

Again, at the Temple in Jerusalem during Holy Week, in a high-stakes game and the ante is getting higher. Jesus’ parables of Judgment and Grace have fallen on deaf ears. Rather than repent, His enemies hardened their hearts against Him.

Everyone loves a wedding and especially the special party afterwards, which is a joyful feast. For the second weekend running, we celebrated weddings on Saturday mornings. We wish these two young couples truly blessed, long and fruitful married lives together. This weekend, we’ll celebrate four baptisms!

Reflecting on these Sacraments of Initiation and on the Vocation of Love, we consider what happens after we are baptized, after we become members of the bride of Christ. We are then clothed in our white baptismal garment, which represents the love of Christ, the charity of Christ, washing us of our sins.

I had to travel to Ireland this past week for the funeral Mass of Annette Higgins, my mother's youngest sister and my Godmother. When I grew up, there was no such thing as abortion in Ireland. I heard about it, of course, but it was a very strange, dark and alien concept, like the evils of World Wars I and II. I knew the Catholic Church spoke out strongly against abortion, and that was good enough for me.

In today’s Gospel passage, Matthew borrows some ideas from Isaiah’s song, but alters the central imagery: Israel is no longer the vineyard itself, but tenant farmers working for their landlord. Features of the parable reflect the condition of life in rural Galilee: it was common for land to be owned by absentee landlords, who will collect their rent in-kind from the tenant farmers at harvest time. The lengthy absence of the landlord alongside the harsh economic climate of the country often led to difficulties between landlord and tenant, sometimes leading to assaults on the agents sent to collect the rent.