Saint Dominic 2022

 

Saint Dominic 2022

 

Today, as I shared at the beginning of Mass, the Church celebrates today the witness of Saint Dominic.  He was the founder of what became known as the Order of Preachers, or the Dominicans for short.  Perhaps the most famous Dominican other than Saint Dominic is Saint Thomas Aquinas.  And St. Thomas Aquinas has an awesome take on our Gospel today where we see Jesus provide the tax for both Himself and Saint Peter in a miraculous way.

 

In the Catholic Church, there is the sin of scandal, such as when a Catholic politician advocates openly for greater access to abortion or a priest publicly defies his bishop.  That is not the scandal that St. Thomas references in his commentary on today’s Gospel.  Scandal in what is to follow is scandal in its worldly sense.

 

So St. Thomas Aquinas says that Jesus does not care about worldly scandal in some instances, and in other instances Jesus does care about worldly scandal.  Worldly Scandal sometimes arises from the Truth, and in that situation, one should not care about who is scandalized by the Truth.  But other times worldly scandal arises from weakness or ignorance, and one should care about not causing this kind of worldly scandal.  But if Jesus had not paid the tax, the temple tax collectors scandal would have been from ignorance because they did not know that Jesus was God.

 

I think that, of course, is a great point. 

 

And it is a point that St. Thomas Aquinas and others make in their commentary on other Gospel passages as well, such as why Jesus asked the young man “Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.”  Jesus is God, but he knew that the young man was not ready to hear it, so he dodges the question without denying that He is God.

 

Where am I going with all of this?  I think it is important for us to pray for the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit when we encounter people who are not ready to hear the entirety of the Truth.  Is there something else we can say that is not false, but also respects where this person is?  And again, I think friendship, particularly in our own day and age, is a great place to start with those who are not yet ready to accept the divinity of Jesus.