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24/10/2026

"Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure." (Luke 13:8)

Three years without fruit, and the owner wants the tree gone. But the gardener pleads for one more year, and promises to work the soil himself. That gardener is Christ, interceding for us and tending our roots with patience. His mercy gives us time. The question is what we'll do with it. 🙏

23/10/2026

"You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" (Luke 12:56)

We check the weather app every morning. We read the market, the traffic, the news. Jesus asks whether we read the signs of God at work with the same attention. The Kingdom is close, in this moment, this conversation, this chance to reconcile. Pause today and ask: Lord, what are You doing here, right now? 🙏

22/10/2026

"I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!" (Luke 12:49)

Jesus didn't come to make us comfortable. He came to set the world alight with the fire of the Holy Spirit. Today the Church remembers St John Paul II, whose first words as Pope were "Be not afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ!" Where is the Lord asking you to stop playing it safe and let the fire catch? 🙏

21/10/2026

"Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required." (Luke 12:48)

Faith, family, time, education, a Church that has handed us the Sacraments: most of us have been given a great deal. Jesus says the gift comes with a responsibility. Not to earn grace, but to pass it on. What have you been given that someone else needs from you today? 🙏

20/10/2026

"Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes." (Luke 12:37)

Then comes one of the most startling lines in the Gospel. The master returns, finds his servants awake, and he puts on the apron, seats them at table, and serves them himself. That is our God. We stay awake not out of fear of being caught, but in longing for the One who comes to serve us. Keep your lamp burning today. 🙏

19/10/2026

"Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15)

The rich man in today's parable isn't a criminal. He's a planner. Good harvest, bigger barns, early retirement. His mistake is not success but a sentence spoken to his own soul: "eat, drink, be merry." He forgot that his life was on loan. Jesus calls him a fool, not for having much, but for being "not rich toward God." What would it look like today to hold what you have a little more loosely? 🙏

18/10/2026

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) · World Mission Sunday
Isaiah 45:1, 4–6 · Psalm 96 · 1 Thessalonians 1:1–5b · Matthew 22:15–21

It is a perfect trap. If Jesus says "pay the tax", He looks like a collaborator with Rome. If He says "don't pay", He is a rebel, and the Herodians standing beside the Pharisees will report it. Either answer loses.

So Jesus asks for a coin. He doesn't carry one. They do, which tells its own story. Then He asks a question: "Whose likeness and inscription is this?" "Caesar's." Then give it back to him.

The answer is so neat that we can miss the second half, which is the real point. "And to God the things that are God's."

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If the coin belongs to Caesar because it bears Caesar's image, what bears God's image? Every listener steeped in Scripture would have known the answer at once: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him" (Genesis 1:27). St Augustine put it simply: Caesar looks for his image on the coin; God looks for His image in you.

So Jesus isn't dividing life into two neat compartments, a bit for the state and a bit for God. He is saying that the coin can go to Caesar, but you cannot. You are stamped with another likeness. You belong, entirely, to the One whose image you bear.

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The first reading makes the same point from another angle. God calls Cyrus, a pagan Persian king, "his anointed", and uses him to bring Israel home from exile. "I gird you, though you do not know me." No ruler, no empire, no government stands outside God's purposes. Caesar has his coin, but even Caesar is held in God's hand.

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Today is also World Mission Sunday, and St Paul shows us what mission looks like. He writes to the young Church in Thessalonica, thanking God for their "work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope", and reminds them that the Gospel came to them "not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction."

That is what it means to render to God what is God's. Not a tithe of our week, but the whole of a life that carries His image into the world: at work, at home, and with the people Caesar's coins will never reach.

The coin is small. The image on you is not. What are you holding back from the One whose likeness you bear? 🙏

17/10/2026

Memorial of St Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr

"And I tell you, every one who acknowledges me before men, the Son of man also will acknowledge before the angels of God." (Luke 12:8)

St Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was led in chains to Rome around AD 107 to face the lions. Along the way he wrote seven letters to the churches, full of love for Christ and the Eucharist. To the Romans he wrote that he was God's wheat, to be ground by the teeth of beasts into pure bread for Christ. Few of us will be asked to witness at that cost. But all of us are asked to acknowledge Him: at work, at the dinner table, online. Today, don't hide your faith. 🙏

16/10/2026

"Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows." (Luke 12:7)

Sparrows were the cheapest thing in the marketplace, sold five for two pennies. Yet Jesus says not one is forgotten by God. Then He goes further: every hair on your head is counted. This is not a God who loves humanity in general and you vaguely. He knows the details. Whatever you are carrying today, you are not carrying it unseen. Fear not. 🙏

15/10/2026

Memorial of St Teresa of Jesus (Ávila), Virgin and Doctor of the Church

"Woe to you lawyers! for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering." (Luke 11:52)

The lawyers held the key to Scripture, but they neither went in themselves nor let others through. St Teresa of Ávila did the opposite. Through her writings on prayer, she opened the door of intimacy with God to ordinary people, not just scholars. She called prayer a friendship with the One who loves us. Who might you help through that door today, whether a child, a friend, or a colleague? 🙏

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64 Mary Street
Highgate, WA
6003

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http://www.evangelisationaustralia.com/

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