Saturday, May 21 : Saint Caesarius of Arles

God accepts our offerings of money and is pleased with the gifts we make to the poor, but on one condition: that every sinner, when offering God his money, should offer him his soul at the same time… When our Lord says: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (Mk 12,17), what does he seem to say but: “Just as you repay Caesar with his own image on a coin so repay God with the image of God within yourselves” (cf. Gn 1,26)… That is why, as we have already said on numerous occasions, when we hand out money to the poor let us offer our souls to God so that, where our treasure is, there our heart may also be. Indeed, why does God ask us to give money? Unquestionably because he knows the special love we have for it, that we are always thinking about it and that, where our money is, there too is our heart. That is why God urges us to make up our treasure in heaven by making gifts of it to the poor; it is so that our hearts may follow where we have already sent our treasure and that, when the priest says: “Lift up your hearts” we may answer with peaceful conscience: “We lift them up to the Lord.”

maronite readings – rosary,team