Sunday, October 18, 2026
100th World Mission Sunday
Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Is 45:1,4-6; Ps 96; 1Thes 1:1-5b; Mt 22:15-21
For the Sundays of Missionary Month in October 2026, we are pleased to share with you some of the meditations prepared for the month as part of a collaborative initiative involving the National Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Italy, India and the United States, together with the PMU International Secretariat.
The commentaries on the biblical readings for Missionary Month have been sent by email to all the PMS National Directors, who may use them in their various missionary animation activities.
We would like to express once again our gratitude to the National Directors who contributed to the preparation of these texts and, in particular, to the authors: Rev. Fr. Alessandro Sacchi (Italy); Rev. Prof. Yesu Karunanidhi (India); and Msgr Roger Landry (United States).
The PMU has also provided some additional points for reflection.
On this World Mission Sunday, as we pray for missionaries across the globe and all those to whom they are striving to bring Jesus and his saving work, we have in the Gospel a reminder of the heart of the Gospel: that God has made us out of love in his own image and likeness, that we are his, and he calls us to life with him.
These truths are revealed in Jesus’ contentious conversation with the Pharisees and Herodians.
These two groups — rigorists and laxists respectively, and therefore generally opposed to each another— co-conspire to trap Jesus. Their question seems simple, but it is malevolently calculated: “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”
If Jesus said yes, they knew, he risked alienating the people. If he said no, he could be accused of inciting rebellion against Rome. But Jesus did not allow himself to be trapped. Instead, he asked for a coin and poded a deeper question: “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” When they replied, “Caesar’s,” he responded, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
Jesus’ response is more than a brilliant escape from a political dilemma. He was leading us beyond a question about taxes to the truth of our identity.
If the coin bears Caesar’s image and belongs to Caesar, then what bears God’s image belongs to God.
As the first chapter of the Bible attests, we have been created in God’s image and likeness. Through baptism, that created reality has been intensified: we have been united to Christ, made children of the Father, and temples of the Holy Spirit. We do not belong partially to God. We belong entirely to him. He claims us lovingly as his own.
This is the foundation of our Christian life and our Christian mission.
Mission does not begin with what we say or do, but with who we are. When we recognize that our life is a gift from God and ultimately belongs to him, everything changes. Our time, our relationships, our work, our resources—all become part of a self-offering back to him with gratitude and love.
Pope Leo XIV, in his message for 2026 World Mission Sunday, wrote that “the more united we are in Christ, the better able we will be to carry out together the mission that he entrusts to us.” From that union with God, and in him with each other, flows all missionary fruitfulness.
This is why the Gospel challenges us today.
Many of us try to live divided lives. We compartmentalize. Perhaps we give something to God, or even a lot to God, but we hold things back for ourselves. Jesus, however, calls us to a total gift, to love God not just with some, or even most, of our mind, heart, soul and strength, but all.
To “render to God what is God’s” means to give him what he has given us — and he has given us our life, our time, our talents, our relationships, our material resources, all that we are and have. It means to treat him not just as part of our life but as its source, summit, root and center.
It likewise means living in the image of the Trinity, in a loving communion of persons with our brothers and sisters. This is the heart of mission, as we and the whole Church seek to proclaim to the world in whose image they’ve been made and seek to bring them to have true communion with God and with us.
On this World Mission Sunday, we remember that God is interested in 100 out of 100, in 8.1 billion out of 8.1 billion. As St. Paul VI wrote for this celebration in 1971, “If there was ever a time when Christians, more than ever in the past, are called to be a light that illuminates the world, a city located on a mountain, a salt that gives flavor to the life of men, this, undoubtedly, is our time. We, in fact, have the antidote to pessimism, dark omens, discouragement and fear, from which our time suffers. We have the Good News!”
Today, then, the Lord invites us to look again at our lives, not as something we possess or own, but as something we have received as a gift and for which we are stewards. He asks us to return that gift to him, freely and fully, especially by the way we use the gift of life to help bring others to him.
The way we most reflect the divine image is by imitating the missions of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and cooperating with God the Father’s plan of saving love, so that none of his children perish but come to eternal life.
Useful points to consider:
Pope Francis, Angelus, Saint Peter’s Square, Sunday, 18 October 2020
This Sunday’s Gospel reading (cf. Mt 22:15-21) shows us Jesus struggling with the hypocrisy of his adversaries. They pay him many compliments — at the beginning, many compliments — but then ask an insidious question to put him in difficulty and discredit him before the people. They ask him: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” (v. 17), that is, to pay their tribute to Caesar. At that time, in Palestine, the domination of the Roman Empire was poorly tolerated — and it is understandable, they were invaders — also for religious reasons. For the people, the worship of the emperor, underscored also by his image on coins, was an insult to the God of Israel.
Jesus’ interlocutors are convinced that there is no alternative to their questioning: either a “yes” or a “no”. They were waiting, precisely because they were sure to back Jesus into a corner with this question, and to make him fall in the trap. But he knows their wickedness and avoids the pitfall. He asks them to show him the coin, the coin of the taxes, of the tribute, takes it in his hands and asks whose is the imprinted image. They answer that it is Caesar’s, that is, the Emperor’s. Then Jesus replies: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (v. 21).
With this reply, Jesus places himself above the controversy. Jesus, always above. On the one hand, he acknowledges that the tribute to Caesar must be paid — for all of us too, taxes must be paid — because the image on the coin is his; but above all he recalls that each person carries within him another image — we carry it in the heart, in the soul — that of God, and therefore it is to Him, and to Him alone, that each person owes his own existence, his own life.
In this maxim of Jesus we find not only the criterion for the distinction between the political sphere and the religious sphere; clear guidelines emerge for the mission of believers of all times, even for us today. To pay taxes is a duty of citizens, as is complying with the just laws of the state. At the same time, it is necessary to affirm God’s primacy in human life and in history, respecting God’s right over all that belongs to him. […]
Benedict XVI, Holy Mass for the New Evangelization, Homily, Vatican Basilica, Sunday, 16 October 2011
[…] The Second Reading is the beginning of the First Letter to the Thessalonians and this is already very evocative because it is the oldest letter that has come down to us of the greatest evangelizer of all time, the Apostle Paul. He tells us first of all that one does not evangelize by oneself: in fact he too had collaborators, Silvanus and Timothy (cf. 1 Thes 1:1) and many others. And he immediately adds something else that is very important: that proclamation must always be preceded, accompanied and followed by prayer. Indeed, he writes: “We give thanks to God always for you all, constantly mentioning you in our prayers” (v. 2). The Apostle then says he is well aware of the fact that he did not choose the members of the community, but that [God]: “has chosen you”, he says (v. 4).
Every Gospel missionary must always bear in mind this truth: it is the Lord who touches hearts with his word and with his Spirit, calling people to faith and to communion in the Church. […]
Let us now reflect on the Gospel passage. It is the text about the legitimacy of the tribute to be paid to Caesar which contains Jesus’ famous answer: “render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22:21). But, before reaching this point there is a passage that can be applied to those who have the mission of evangelizing. Indeed, those who are speaking with Jesus — disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians — compliment him, saying “we know that you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully, and care for no man” (v. 16). It is this affirmation itself, although it is prompted by hypocrisy, that must attract our attention. The disciples of the Pharisees and Herodians do not believe in what they say. They are only affirming it as a captatio benevolentiae to make people listen to them, but their heart is far from that truth; indeed, they want to lure Jesus into a trap to be able to accuse him. For us, instead, those words are precious: indeed, Jesus is true and teaches the way of God according to the truth, and stands in awe of none. He himself is that “way of God”, which we are called to take. Here we may recall the words of Jesus himself in John’s Gospel: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (14:6).
In this regard St Augustine’s comment is illuminating: “It was necessary for Jesus to say ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’, when knowing the way by which he went they had to learn where he was going. The way led to truth, it led to life…. And where are we going, but to him, and by what way do we go, but by him? (In Evangelium Johannis tractatus 69, 2). The new evangelizers are called to walk first on this Way that is Christ, to make others know the beauty of the Gospel that gives life. […]
A brief reflection also on the central question of the tribute to Caesar. […] An anonymous author wrote: “The image of God is not impressed on gold, but on the human race. Caesar’s coin is gold, God’s coin is humanity…. Therefore give your riches to Caesar but keep for God the unique innocence of your conscience, where God is contemplated…. Caesar, in fact, asked that his image be on every coin, but God chose man, whom he created to reflect his glory” (Anonymous, Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 42). And St Augustine used this reference several times in his homilies: “If Caesar reclaims his own image impressed on the coin”, he says, “will not God demand from man the divine image sculpted within him?” (En. Ps., Psalm 94:2). […]