Homily for Mission Sunday

Homily for Mission Sunday
29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Oct. 18, 2026
Ps 96: 1, 3-5, 7-10
Is 45: 1, 4-6
Matt 22: 15-21
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

“Sing to the Lord a new song….  Tell his glory among the nations” (Ps 96: 1, 3).

St Edward's Crown, the Orb, the Sovereign's Sceptre with Cross,
the Sovereign's Sceptre with Dove, and the Sovereign's Ring 
(Credit: U.K. Government)

What is glory?  If you’ve watched a royal program from Westminster Abbey—the king’s coronation, for instance—you’ve seen a form of earthly glory.  If you lived in Milwaukee now, you’d be basking in the glory of the Brewers, National League champions, conquerors of the mighty Dodgers.  If you’re old enuf—most of you are—you remember the 1989 film titled Glory, starring Denzel Washington, Matthew Broderick, and Morgan Freeman, about a black Civil War regiment that won glory by proving that black men could fight with toughness and courage.

Film poster for Glory 
(Copyright 1989, TriStar Pictures)

Our responsorial psalm commands us to glorify God; to praise him not only among ourselves but to the whole world.  His works of salvation make him most praiseworthy.

In the 1st reading, Isaiah points out to Israel that God works his will among the nations of the earth, even thru the ruler of a mighty empire.  God has appointed Cyrus, king of Persia, to do his work, to subdue nations—for the sake of Israel.  Cyrus will conquer Babylon and liberate the Jewish people from their exile.  He’ll let them go home and re-settle in Judea.  “Toward the rising and the setting of the sun, people may know that there is no other god besides the Lord of Israel,” from one end of the Persian Empire to the other (cf. Is 45:6).

It’s God’s will that we, his people in Jesus Christ, make his name known and worshiped from one end of the earth to the other—not that our circular Earth has a geographical end; but that God who created it and Jesus who redeems the human race should be acknowledged and adored everywhere; that we give glory to the Lord and win a share in his glory.

Jesus sent out his apostles to preach the Gospel everywhere.  The Church exists to preach the Gospel.  The Church is missionary.  You and I are missionaries.  We’re happy that Christ saves us from our sins and calls us to eternal happiness after our life on earth is finished.  An unfinished, unending life awaits us, one in which we’ll share in the glory of God that the psalmist praised so heartily.

There are, of course, men and women who go to far-off lands to preach the Gospel, to make Jesus Christ known and loved.  But you and I are missionaries, too.  It’s our mission to make Jesus known and loved in our families, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, and our leisure time.

(Rubens)

You’ve all heard the saying attributed—inaccurately—to St. Francis:  “Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.”  You may also have heard another saying:  “What you do speaks so loudly that I can’t hear what you’re saying.”  Our behavior reveals whether we’re followers of Jesus or worship some other god, e.g., wealth, pride, pleasure, or prestige; whether we aim at God’s glory or our own.

Back in the ’70s, there was a popular poster that asked, “If you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enuf evidence to convict you?”  Does our day-to-day life—how we treat other people, how honest we are, how generous, how helpful, our observance of Sunday—give evidence that we’re disciples of Jesus?

By trying our best to live like Christ, we’re being missionaries.  People notice whether we’re faithful, kind, cheerful, self-giving, chaste, devout.  Jesus said at the Last Supper, “By this will everyone know that you’re my disciples, by your love for one another” (John 13:35).  “One another” doesn’t mean just our family members; it means everyone:  people next door, people we see in church, people who don’t go to church, people we don’t like, people who do evil.  (Jesus does tell us to love our enemies.)

In today’s gospel, the emperor’s image on a coin means the emperor has a financial stake in our lives.  Jesus tells us to give to the government what it has a legitimate claim to.  We pay taxes so that, e.g., we’ll have roads and bridges, safe food and safe airplanes, police and fire departments.

Roman denarius
with the image of Tiberius Caesar

And he tells us to give to God what belongs to God.  He doesn’t show an image of God as he showed a Roman coin.  But we know where to find God’s image:  in every human being.  Every person is created in the image of God and has God-given dignity.  Every person deserves respect:  the unborn, the sick, the elderly, the handicapped, the foreigner, the young, the powerless, the homeless, even the criminal (a criminal may be punished, but not cruelly).  We pay tribute to God by treating others reverently.  Our kindness, our patience, our honesty, our fairness, our chastity, our faithfulness are all ways in which we honor the image of God and announce, however quietly, that we belong to Jesus.  So we preach the Gospel.  And we are missionaries.

Not least, we follow Jesus by praying—for our families and friends, for peaceful resolutions of conflict, for the safety of first responders and our armed forces, for the Pope, our bishop, our priests, deacons, and religious, for catechists and teachers.  And, yes, for missionaries who go to far-off lands to make God known and adored:  “Give to the Lord, you families of nations, give to the Lord glory and praise!” (Ps 96:7).