May Jesus Christ be praised and may his holy mother pray for
us.
Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs
to God. The coin made in the image and
likeness of Caesar belongs to Caesar, but we were made in the image and
likeness of God. We do not belong to
Caesar. We belong to God.
Caesar has his legitimate power. Caesar can take us to war. Caesar can take us to jail, but Caesar cannot
take us to heaven. Salvation does not
belong to the government, but to the Most High God. Every government that has promised its people
salvation has eventually made its people into slaves. This is not our destiny, brothers and
sisters. We have been created and
consecrated as sons and daughters for the Kingdom of Heaven. We do not belong to Caesar. We belong to God.
And God is worthy of our worship. We enter into this Church each week, and
hopefully we enter into prayer each day, because the Lord God is worthy of our
praise. In worship we respond in love to
the love that God has shown to us. We
come to worship to give to God what belongs to God. We come to worship to give of ourselves, of
our time and of the fruits of our labors.
We come to worship to make our offering to the Father through the
sacrifice of the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit. In worship we give to God what belongs to
God, and we belong to God.
But God has also sent us to Caesar and to our society. We have a mission, dear brothers and
sisters. The whole people of God have
been sent on a mission by God. We have
been called to the altar to praise the glory of the Father in the midst of the
Church, so that we can proclaim the goodness of the Father in the midst of the
world. We come to worship and we are
transformed so that we can be the transforming presence in the world. We are sent to Caesar and to our society as
salt and as light. The Christian people
are called to bring the purification of what is bad and the preservation of
what is good to our society. The
Christian people are called to bring illumination to the darkness whenever
Caesar and the state have rejected what the Lord God has declared. This is our mission to Caesar and to our
society.
We owe to Caesar and to our
society the voices of the Christian people proclaiming the dignity of life, of
marriage, of family, and the dignity of every human person created in the image
and likeness of God. We owe to Caesar
and to our society the voices of the Christian people proclaiming the dignity
of workers, care for the sick and the hungry, and compassion for the dying. We owe to Caesar and to our society the
sanctifying presence of the people of God in the midst of the world. We will change the world and our society by
being in it, not by hiding from it. We
owe to Caesar and to our society the radiant glory of the Son of God seen in
our lives and heard in our voices.
My dear brothers and sisters, let us be seen and heard. Amen.
Preached at Our Lady of Lourdes
Catholic Church, Monroe, NC
