How to ‘Give Caesar His Due’ On Election Day

Cyrus the Great of Persia

 

(Twenty-ninth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on October 18, 2020 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 45:1, 4-6; Psalm 96:1-10; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5; Matthew 22:15-21.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-ninth Sunday 2020]

  

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”

Based on a quick reading of the gospel story we just heard, you might think that this is simply a command to pay your taxes.  But that’s too narrow an interpretation of the text.  Yes, the passage does teach us that we should honor all legitimate civil authority and obey the tax laws and other laws of our nation (unless, of course, those laws command us to do something contrary to God’s eternal law).  But giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s also includes other things—like participation in the political process.  In fact, paragraph 2240 of the Catechism explicitly states: “Submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it morally obligatory to pay taxes, to exercise the right to vote, and to defend one’s country.”

All that having been said, today is a perfect day to reflect on how we, as Catholics, are supposed to ‘give Caesar his due’ by voting in this year’s national election.

What are the ideas and principles that should guide us, as Catholics, in our choice of candidates?

That, I would say, is the key question we need to ponder.

That question was answered for many Catholics this past week, with a YouTube video that went viral.  The video was of a homily that was given last weekend by Fr. Edward Meeks, a Catholic priest from Christ the King Church in Towson, Maryland.

I’ll read a small portion of it to you this morning.  This is what every Catholic voter needs to know and understand (so make sure you spread the word to others between now and Election Day!).  Fr. Meeks said:

For us faithful Catholics, the starting point of our choice of whom to vote for needs to be that we intentionally think with the Church—something that too many Catholics have failed to do for far too long: a fact that has largely contributed to the dire condition of our culture today. The Church has clearly and consistently based her teaching on the Sacred Scriptures and on the living Tradition embodied in 2,000 years of her Magisterium.  That teaching has led to an array of foundational principles when it comes to us as Catholics and our moral and civic responsibilities. 

It’s not always easy to sift through the myriad of issues at play in presidential politics.  So it becomes crucial then that we properly prioritize those issues, because some are clearly more important than others.  We can respectfully disagree and we can have differences in prudential judgment and opinion on issues like the economy, taxation, immigration, national defense, trade, health care, climate change and so on.  But don’t get sidetracked by the spurious “seamless garment” theory espoused by many in the Church that asserts that issues like immigration and the environment are of equal weight with abortion—because there is a set of issues upon which Catholics must not disagree. 

Pope Benedict XVI specified those issues in his 2012 apostolic constitution, entitled, “Sacramentum Caritatis,” in which Benedict defined what he called our “non-negotiable values”—a concept which he repeated countless times in his pontificate.  Among the list of non-negotiable issues that he identified, chief among them are the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, the sanctity of marriage as the lifelong sacramental union of a man and a woman, and the preservation of religious liberty.  They are non-negotiable because they are of paramount importance in Catholic moral theology.  They are the moral principles where the Church draws a clear line in the sand. And in all of the fog and the confusion and spin that surrounds every political season we must, as faithful Catholics, conscientiously vote in such a way that best upholds and protects these non-negotiable values.  Again: the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, and religious liberty. Not that other issues are unimportant, but these 3 are foundational to who we are as human beings and to what kind of society we are constructing.

I couldn’t have said it better myself!

In conclusion let me add one more point: Remember as we approach Election Day that not every candidate who calls himself a Catholic is with the Church concerning those most important matters mentioned in Fr. Meeks’ homily!  In fact, sometimes non-believers actually support the things of God a lot better than believers do. 

Think, for example, of Cyrus.

Cyrus was the civil leader mentioned in today’s first reading.  He was the King of Persia, who ruled from 559-529 B.C.  He was also a pagan, a Gentile, an unbeliever.  And yet, he is called “God’s anointed” in this text we just heard from Isaiah 45!

Why?  Because he allowed the people of Israel to return to their homeland and rebuild their sacred Temple after they had spent several decades in exile in Babylon. 

He conquered the Babylonians, and then he let the Israelites go home.

Even though he was a pagan, Cyrus of Persia did something that was morally righteous, and that made him a better civil leader than many of the Israelite kings of the past had been!  Thus the Hebrew Scriptures call him the “anointed” of the Lord.

May Almighty God help us to recognize the Cyruses of our generation—as well as the believers of our generation—who deserve our votes.  And may he help us to ‘give Caesar his due’ by actually casting our ballots for these candidates this November—and in every election thereafter.

In a World of Moral Confusion, There Can be no Peace

(Twenty-seventh Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on October 4, 2020 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:9-20; Philippians 4:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-seventh Sunday 2020]

 

In the movie, Schindler’s List, Amon Goeth, the commandant of the Nazi labor camp, took a young, Jewish girl to be his personal maidservant.  At one point in the film, this girl had a private and very disturbing conversation with Oskar Schindler.  With deep fear in her voice she said to him, “I know that someday my master will shoot me.”  Schindler, at first, couldn’t believe it, and he tried to assure her that the commandant was really quite fond of her.  But she insisted, “No, someday he will shoot me.”  She then spoke of what she had seen the previous day.  She said that she had seen him walk out of his quarters, draw his gun, and shoot a Jewish woman who was walking by with a bundle in her hand. 

Listen, now, to her description of the woman—and her very insightful comment.  She said, “Just a woman on her way somewhere.  No fatter, or thinner, or slower, or faster than anyone else; and I couldn’t guess what she had done [to provoke him].  The more you see of the commandant, the more you see there are no set rules that you can live by.  You can’t say to yourself, ‘If I follow these rules, I will be safe.’”

That girl was absolutely correct: In a world of moral confusion, there can be no safety, and, consequently, no peace.  She understood that in the “world” of that Nazi labor camp, right and wrong had been blurred to such an extent, that she couldn’t determine what was “right” in the mind of the commandant.  What pleased him at one moment might not please him in the next.  And if he happened to have a gun in his hand when he wasn’t pleased, she knew she could easily end up like the woman with the bundle in her hand.

In today’s world, most people say they want peace, do they not?  And yet, many of them also want their moral relativism: that is to say, they want to be able to define right and wrong for themselves.  But you cannot have both.  It’s not—and it never can be—peace and moral relativism; it’s either peace or it’s moral relativism. 

Consider, for example, terrorism.  Terrorism—which has been undermining efforts for peace all over the world for decades now—is a practice rooted in moral relativism.  The terrorist does not accept the objective, moral truth that the direct killing of innocent people is always wrong.  In his moral relativism, he’s convinced himself that killing innocent men, women, and children is acceptable—and sometimes even virtuous.

The people at Planned Parenthood think the very same way with respect to unborn babies.  So do many of the people who’ve been inciting riots and attacking the police in major cities all over the country since the horrible killing of George Floyd.  A lot of these rioters are professed Marxists—like the founders of the Black Lives Matter Movement—who want to literally tear our society and culture down and try to create their own socialist utopia.  They don’t want to reform the culture we have (which is what we should all want), rather they want to REPLACE the culture—ultimately, with chaos!  Defund the police?  Are they nuts?  Most African Americans in this country want MORE POLICE on the streets of their communities, not less!

If there’s ever going to be peace, the terrorists of the world (and that includes the domestic terrorists on our city streets) have to accept the objective, moral norm that innocent human life is always to be respected.

In a world of moral confusion, there can be no safety, and, consequently, no peace.

Please remember this when you go and vote in November.  If you vote for people who reject objective, moral standards, and support things like abortion, sexual immorality, violence and the like, then you are indirectly undermining world peace—whether you realize it or not.

Now I know this message about objective morality is not a popular one these days.  But the fact of the matter is it never has been!—as today’s Gospel text from Matthew 21 makes very clear.  Here Jesus tells a parable about a landowner who leased his vineyard out to tenants and then sent servants to the tenants at harvest time.  Those “servants” were the Old Testament prophets, who preached the Ten Commandments and “objective morality” to the people of Israel.  And what kind of reception did these prophets receive from the moral relativists in Old Testament Israel (of which there were many!)?  Jesus told us, using the imagery of the parable.  He said, “The tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned.  Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way.”

What a comforting thought to those of us who continue to preach this message!

I’ll give the final word today to St. Paul, who also knew and taught that objective morality is the only path to happiness and peace.  What he said to the Philippians in this second reading, he says to all of us this morning:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about THESE things.  Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.  Then [and I might add ONLY then] will the God of peace be with you.

 

It’s Not About Where You Start, It’s About Where You Finish!

(Twenty-sixth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on September 27, 2020 at St. James Chapel, Charlestown, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Ezekiel 18:25-28; Psalm 25:4-9; Philippians 2:1-11; Matthew 21:28-32.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-sixth Sunday 2020]

It’s not about where you start, it’s about where you finish.

That’s the message that I believe the Lord has for us today in these Scripture readings—and especially in this gospel passage from Matthew 21.

This is a spiritual truth, incidentally, that applies to many areas of life.  For example, why is it that sports movies like “Rocky” and “Rudy” and “Hoosiers” (the basketball film) are so appealing?  Why do people like them so much?

It’s because the main characters all “finish” in a better place than they “start”.

In today’s gospel Jesus tells us a parable about two sons.  The first starts in disobedience, but he ends up finishing in obedience (“A man had two sons.  He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’  He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards changed his mind and went.”); the second son, on the other hand, starts off in obedience, but he ends up finishing in disobedience (“The man came to the other son and gave him the same order.  He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go.”).

 Jesus told this story to the chief priests and elders of the people to warn them that even though they had started off in faithfulness to God by accepting the truth the Lord had revealed through Moses, they were in danger of eventually finishing in hell, because they were rejecting him—and because they had already rejected his predecessor, John the Baptist!  Whereas many tax collectors, prostitutes and other people who had started off in serious sin (at the beginning of John’s ministry) were now on their way to finishing in the Lord’s eternal and glorious kingdom!

 It’s not about where you start, it’s about where you finish.

This is the same message we encounter in today’s first reading from Ezekiel 18, where the prophet says (and here I’m paraphrasing his words): “If a person who starts off living a virtuous life turns away from his virtue and sins seriously—and he remains in that spiritual condition—he will lose his soul.  But if that same person (or anyone else in the state of mortal sin) turns away from that sin—and finishes his life in the state of grace—he will be saved for all eternity!  He shall surely live, he shall not die.”

Now some of you may be thinking, “Thank you, Father Ray, but all of this is quite clear and quite obvious!”

To which I would respond, “Well, it might be clear and obvious to you, but it’s definitely NOT clear and obvious to a lot of other people!”

There are many in our world right now (and even many in the Church!) who believe that everyone (with the possible exception of a few bad guys like Hitler and Stalin) will finish in the kingdom, regardless of what sins they have on their souls when they finish their earthly lives.

According to Jesus, that’s a mistaken idea that can literally have eternal consequences.

But the denial of this truth about starting and finishing can also affect us in other ways.  For example, why do so many people take their own lives these days?  Why do so many despair?

It’s ultimately because they don’t believe they can finish in a better place (emotionally and spiritually) than they’re starting in at the present moment!

So everything appears hopeless—even though it isn’t.

Here’s a lie that’s straight out of the pit of hell: “You can’t possibly finish in a better place than you’re starting in right now.”

Satan whispers that lie into the ears of those who are on the verge of despair.  He whispers it into the ears of women who have had abortions; he whispers it into the ears of all those who have committed serious sins that they regret and are deeply ashamed of.

And the tragedy is that many of the men and women in these situations believe the devil!

That’s why some of them stay away from confession—and stop praying—and give up the practice of their Catholic faith. 

They think, “Well, what’s the use?  I am what I am; I’ve done what I’ve done—and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

I ask you, my brothers and sisters, what would have happened to Saul of Tarsus if he had thought that about himself after Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and made him aware of his sins?

I know one thing for sure: he never would have become Saint Paul!

What would have happened to Augustine, the womanizer and playboy, if he had thought that about himself and his sinful situation?

I’m not exactly sure, but I can guarantee you that he never would have become Saint Augustine!

Like the first son in the story, Saul and Augustine understood that even though they had started in deep sin they could finish somewhere else—somewhere a lot better!

I mention all this today, my brothers and sisters, because, when you stop and think about it, at this precise moment we’re all starting the rest of our lives here on this earth.  As the old saying goes, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

And we’re all starting this journey from different places.  We each have our own set of fears and character flaws—and sins.  Some of us may be starting with mortal sins and some very deep regrets.

Well, unfortunately, we can’t control where we’re starting from—because we can’t change the past.

But by the grace of God WE can control where we finish—even if we’re starting from a very bad place!

And the key to doing that is, believe it or not, the virtue of humility.

The last stanza of today’s responsorial psalm (psalm 25) reads: “Good and upright is the Lord; thus he shows sinners the way.  He guides the humble to justice, and teaches the humble his way.”

The first son in this parable finished well because he was humble.  THAT was the reason!

Here we have to read between the lines a little bit. Why did he change his mind and go into the vineyard to work? 

It’s because he was wrong and because he was humble enough to admit that to himself!

At some point after he left his dad, he obviously thought to himself, “You know what?—you were wrong to say what you said to your father today!  You should go and do what he told you to do.”  THAT’S HUMILITY.

It takes humility to admit you’re wrong.  It takes humility to acknowledge that you’ve sinned.  It takes humility to go before a priest in a confessional and honestly admit to him the evil you’ve done and the good you haven’t done.

Humility is a very powerful virtue—one that we should pray for every day; because it’s the virtue that can take a person from the worst starting point imaginable, to the place where we all want to finish.

Which is great news, my brothers and sisters, because, when all is said and done, where we started from won’t matter at all.  But where we finish will matter—FOREVER!

The Reward Will Be the Same, But People’s Capacity to Enjoy the Reward Will Be Different!

(Twenty-fifth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on September 19-20, 2020 at St. Mary’s Church, Carolina, and St. James Chapel, Charlestown, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 55:6-9; Psalm 145:2-18; Philippians 1:20-27; Matthew 20:1-16a.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-fifth Sunday 2020]

 

The reward will be the same, but people’s capacity to enjoy the reward will be different.

This is a very important truth for us to keep in mind when we’re trying to understand the parable we just heard from Matthew 20, this well-known story of the workers in the vineyard.

First of all, however, we need to make a crucial distinction: we need to distinguish between the primary meaning of this parable as it was told by Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, and the legitimate—but secondary—application of the parable that people very often make. 

The primary meaning of this story is that Gentiles, through God’s saving grace, have the same opportunity to go to heaven that Jews have.  That’s it, in a nutshell.  Here’s how one Bible commentary explains it:

This parable is addressed to the Jewish people, whom God called at an early hour, centuries ago.  Now the Gentiles are also being called—with an equal right to form part of a new people of God, the Church.  In both cases it is a matter of a gratuitous, unmerited, invitation; therefore, those who were the ‘first’ to receive the call have no grounds for complaining when God calls the ‘last’ and gives them the same reward. . . . Jesus leaves no doubt that although he calls us to follow different ways, all receive the same reward—heaven.”  (Navarre Bible Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, page 173.)

This brings us to the secondary application of the story, which is where people often get confused.  Let me frame the issue in this way: From the way the story is told, it seems that non-believers who convert and get baptized on their deathbeds—and lapsed Catholics who make a good and sincere confession right before they die—get the best of both worlds (so to speak).  They live their entire lives doing what they want and having a good old time, but in the end they get the same heavenly reward that someone like Mother Teresa gets!

So people read this text and say, “Why should I make the effort to know, love and serve God every day?  Why should I try to be holy and obedient to the Lord in all things?  Why should I fight the good fight and run the race and keep the faith?  What difference does it make?  According to what Jesus says here I can do whatever I want for my entire life, convert at the end, and I’ll get the same reward as the great saints who served God faithfully for their entire lives!”

Ah yes, but these good people are forgetting one thing—one very important thing; as I said a few moments ago, the reward will be the same, but people’s capacity to enjoy the reward will be different. 

Everyone, in other words, who dies in the state of grace will eventually get into the eternal kingdom of God—even if their conversion (or re-version to Christ) happened at the “11^th hour” of their life.  So the “reward” of every saved person will be the same: heaven.  But the capacity of a particular person—me, for example, to experience God and his blessings in the kingdom will be greater or lesser, depending on the level of holiness I attained during my earthly life. 

Jesus indicated this when he talked about “the least” and “the greatest” in the kingdom of heaven, and when he spoke about the seat at his right hand and the seat at his left hand in his Father’s kingdom.  We also see an indication of it in John 14, where our Lord said, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”

St. Augustine described this situation by, in effect, comparing our souls to different sized containers.  Pope Emeritus Benedict alluded to this idea of Augustine in one of his encyclicals when he wrote: “Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched.  [As St. Augustine says,] ‘By delaying [his gift], God strengthens our desire; through desire he enlarges our soul and by expanding it he increases its capacity [for receiving him].’”  

By following the advice that Isaiah gives us in today’s first reading and seeking the Lord faithfully through prayer and through the sacraments; by living in faith and performing acts of selfless charity; by growing closer to Jesus Christ and becoming more like him—that is to say, by growing in holiness each day—we increase our capacity for God. 

That’s Augustine’s point here.

This means that someone who has a conversion on his deathbed will probably have a much smaller capacity for God in heaven than a great saint like Mother Teresa—or even compared to an ordinary Christian who grew in faith and in holiness for many years on earth.

The person who has a conversion at the end of his life will probably have a capacity for God in heaven that’s the size of a thimble.  Comparatively speaking, the ordinary, holy Christian will have a capacity for God that’s the size of a pint or quart; whereas the great saints of the Church like Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa will be like gallons! 

Now the interesting thing is, in heaven everyone will be full: everyone will be full of God and his grace!  But the fullness experienced by the thimble-sized soul will be a lot different than the fullness experienced by the gallon-sized soul of the saint!  

So yes, the reward will be the same, but people’s capacity to enjoy the reward will be different.

I was trying to think of another earthly analogy that I could use to conclude my homily today and drive home this point, and what came to me was the following example: 

Imagine two men, John and Bill, who work for the same company.  One day the boss calls them into his office and says, “Gentlemen, you’ve done excellent work lately, and to show my appreciation I’m going to give you my two tickets to this Sunday’s Patriots’ game.  [Obviously this was before the COVID19 crisis!] I’m going out of town this weekend, so I can’t use them.  Here they are.  Enjoy!—they’re great seats, on the 50 yard line, ten rows up.”

John and Bill say, “Thank you very much, sir!” and they immediately make plans to go to the game. 

Here now is a little essential background information on these two men: 

John has been a Patriots’ fan for as long as he can remember—ever since he was a little boy 60 years ago.  He’s been loyal to the team in good times and in bad—which includes the mid-1960s, when the Patriots were one of the worst teams in the old AFL.  He watches every game; he knows the statistics of all the key players; he has Patriots memorabilia all over his house!

Bill also is a Patriots’ fan—although he’s only been one for a couple of years.  One reason for that is that he’s originally from Australia, where “football” means something very different than it does here in the United States.  In fact, he’s still learning about our game.  For example, the last time he watched a game of American football on television, the punter punted the ball out of the end zone and Bill thought the man had just kicked a field goal!

So I ask you, in all likelihood which of these two men will enjoy Sunday’s Patriots’ game more?  Which one will have the capacity—the ability—to enjoy it more?

The answer, of course, is John.  Because John has been a faithful follower of the Pats for so many years; because he knows the game of football so well and has persevered with his team through thick and thin, HIS CAPACITY TO ENJOY THIS REWARD FROM HIS BOSS WILL BE MUCH, MUCH GREATER THAN BILL’S, since Bill barely knows what an American football is!

But notice—both men will have the same experience—the exact same experience; both will have the same reward from their boss—a free ticket to this game.  

Their reward will be the same, but their capacity to enjoy the reward will be different!

And that’s the way it will be for souls in heaven.