‘Give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar and to God what belongs to God’. This is one of the great one liners of Jesus in the gospel today. Ella Wilcox was a teenager in Wisconsin when Lincoln was shot in the 1865. She grew up to become a poet and a popular newspaper columnist. One of her poems is called “Protests.” It speaks out against a host of evils that blotted the face of America in the late 1800s. The poem goes something like this: ‘To sin by silence, when you should speak out – this makes cowards of us all. The few who dare, therefore, must speak out against the injustices of the powerful. And so, I speak out’. She spoke out against many of the injustices that were blotting the face of America at that time. Ella Wilcox is simply putting into practice the teaching of Jesus in today’s Gospel. In ancient Greece and Rome people loved theatre, so actors were very important people, they were celebrities.  In a play, each actor would play several different parts, and for each one he would wear a mask, and would put on a different voice.  The word for actor in Greek is hypocrite.  It means, a person wearing a mask pretending he is someone who he is not; saying words he does not believe. That’s fine in theatre, that’s what theatre is all about.  But little by little, the word took on a new meaning, it meant a person who was not an actor, but a person who was acting in real life.  It meant especially a person who pretended to be good and virtuous in the eyes of others,  but was very different deep within his own heart.  My mother had a great phrase, ‘a street angel and house devil.’ In the gospel today, Jesus is approached by the Pharisees,  their conduct is perfect, they are so polite and respectful;  but they are using their politeness and respect to destroy Jesus.  They ask him if they should pay tribute to Cesar.  Here we see the clash between lies and truth, between sincerity and insincerity,  honesty and dishonety.  But Jesus sees through their masks, he sees into the heart,  and he gives a brilliant wise answer: ‘Give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar and to God what belongs to God.’  Its easy to call somebody else a hypocrite,  but we must question ourselves: is there some hypocrisy in my own behaviour? Do I sometimes try to appear better than I really am?  Do I act differently when I am seen and when I am not seen?  Do I act differently with different people?  If this happens, let us look into the eyes of Jesus.  He is truth itself, he knows us better than anyone else.  He will tell us that he loves us just the way we are, we don’t have to  pretend, we don’t need a mask. St. Francis De Sales said very beautifully, ‘don’t ever try to be anything except yourself,  and be that in the best possible way’. When we live like that, we too can give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar, and to God, what belongs to God.