Ordinary Time 29 - October 22, 2017

Homily for October 22, 2017

Twenty-Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Give to Caesar the Refashioned Image of God

            Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, was founded as a Catholic college, but as happens all too often it quickly lost its mission in the crazy drug-and-sex culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s. In fact, in the 1970s, Playboy Magazine ranked Franciscan University in their top-25 Party Schools…a rather dubious honor! The school was quickly dying – one of the residence halls had a “For Sale” sign in front of it, enrollment was dropping, and they were deeply in debt.

            In 1974, the board of directors needed a new president for this sinking ship, and four candidates interviewed for the job. Only one candidate wanted to keep the school open, so they gave the job to him. This young Franciscan priest, Fr. Michael Scanlan, was faced with a monumental task – how do you save a university?

            He started in one place only: on his knees. His secretary used to complain that Fr. Scanlan wouldn’t come into work until 11am. Was he lazy? Taking the morning off? No, he was in the chapel, asking God for His will. And His will seemed a bit daring at times! Fr. Scanlan felt that the Holy Spirit was telling him to do some radical things – he eliminated all NCAA D-I Sports and dissolved the fraternities and sororities, knowing that sports teams along with Greek life were bringing the culture of lust and drugs onto the campus. The first Sunday on campus, Fr. Michael found that only six students attended Mass. So did he make the Mass shorter? No, he began to make it longer – preaching dynamic homilies, with vibrant music. He ripped down the “For-Sale” sign and began to hire faculty who were men and women with a deep relationship with the Lord, faithful to the Catholic Church.

            All of these changes worked only because Fr. Scanlan was a man of prayer. The school is now filled to capacity – I had the blessing to graduate from there, and today there are between 600-800 students attending daily Mass! Over 700 graduates have gone on to become priests or nuns, and it has the largest undergraduate theology program in the country. It wasn’t Fr. Scanlan’s solutions that solved the problems at Franciscan University – it was God’s solutions, which were brought about through the holiness of Fr. Scanlan.

            Jesus tells us to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s. But how often have we put our trust, not in God’s solutions, but in our own? We see the world in a messy state: poverty, racism, abuse, abortion, depression, broken families…what is the solution? Is it more politics? Should we just throw more money at these problems?

            Politics will not save us. Money will not save us. Caesar cannot save us. The only thing that can save us is to return to God. Only His grace can save us. This is not a platitude – it is a fact, because all of our efforts to change the world apart from God are futile. As the Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, once said, “The only people who truly change the world are saints.”

            This idea of “image” in today’s Gospel puts two things in radical contrast. Jesus asks for a coin, and asks whose image is on it. It is the image of Caesar, but in Jesus’ day, the Roman Emperor considered himself divine. So here, on this coin, is the image of a pagan god. But by contrast, there is something that bears the image of the true God – human beings. Genesis reveals that we are made in God’s image and likeness. So we are the currency that God wishes to use to change the world.

            But wait a moment – have you ever wondered why we talk about “image AND likeness”? Are they different? Yes, they are. Imagine that you are holding a very dirty penny. It’s so darkened and worn-down that you can barely make out what it says. You know that it is the image of Lincoln, but it really isn’t a very good likeness. Or picture some modern art. Sometimes you go to a modern art gallery and you see three lines on a canvas, and they tell you that it’s supposed to look like a beautiful sunset, and you say, “Well, supposedly it may be an image of a sunset, but it really doesn’t look much like it!”

            In the same way, we are all created in God’s image. But sometimes we don’t think or act very much like God. We can obscure His likeness by sin, error, lies, evil. His grace, however, can refashion that image within us. In fact, that is the entire point of life – to refashion the image of Christ within us, through our union with Him in grace.

            These two coins: the secular coin with the image of Caesar – that coin of worldly power and money; or the coin of a soul in the state of grace, in the image and likeness of God – which one will save the world? Which one will solve the world’s problems? Not politics or money – only men and women transformed by grace. When we become serious about holiness and seeking God, then will our country be changed.

            I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes, from a sixteenth-century Spanish saint, St. Peter of Alacantra, who said: “Truly, matters in the world are in a bad state; but if you and I begin in earnest to reform ourselves, a really good beginning will have been made.”