Podcast | Lord, Begin With Me (Episode 314)

Hello everyone and welcome to Heart of the Homily Podcast.

My name is Michelle and I'm here with Father Rigova.

It's good to see you, Michelle.

Thank you, you two.

Another Monday.

Another beautiful week.

Um, beautiful star of the week.

So excited to unpack your homily and the gospel from yesterday.

And Father, it was actually really interesting because I went to the Vigil Mass and then I listened to your homily Sunday afternoon.

I was like, wait a minute, what?

I do that a lot.

And but see, here's the thing, you don't go to the vigil mass a lot.

No, I don't.

I don't.

I I tell the people at the 530 that they're my guinea pig.

So sometimes I give a homily and I can tell if it sticks or if it doesn't, or if I want to change the direction a little bit.

So what I do is sometimes after the 530 mass, if I don't have a dinner or have something that I have to go to, I'll go back to my desk and work on the homily again.

And I did this week again.

So if you went to the 530, um, you heard one homily and then the rest of Sunday was a little bit different.

A little bit different actually.

Yes, it was a lot different.

And um, it was fun to listen and be like, wait a minute, am I listening to the right day?

And I was like, Yep, we changed it, but um, but it was it was wonderful, so excited to have to happen.

And we're looking at the gospel uh the gospel of Matthew, chapter 22, verses 15 to 21.

Matthew 22:15–21

So we'll start with reading the gospel.

The Pharisees went off and they plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.

They sent their disciples to him with a Herodian, saying, Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man, and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth, and you are not concerned with anyone's opinion, for you do not recard a person's status.

Tell us then what is your opinion?

Is it lawful to pay the census taxes to Caesar or not?

Knowing their malice, Jesus said, Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?

Show me the coin that pays the census tax tax.

And they handed him the Roman coin.

He said to them, Whose image is this and whose inscription?

They replied, Caesar's.

And that he said to them, Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.

So a real striking homily, Father.

And um this homily has always stood with me because it's just such it's like a brilliant response.

It's like such a brilliant response that just like quiets everyone and is so real.

I I thought the same thing.

I when I was just praying through it at first, and I, of course, like everyone, we've heard this gospel many times.

It's one of Jesus' most famous sayings, and even if you're not Catholic or you're Christian, you know this saying, right?

Right.

Um but something I was thinking about was how brilliant.

I don't think I would have come back with a response like that, like so quick on your toes.

Like, okay, you think you got me?

Nah.

Yeah.

It's brilliant.

And something so tangible.

Brilliant.

Something so tangible.

Makes so much sense.

And they they think that they they're gonna entrap them because these two groups, they are out to get them.

Um, so yeah, Jesus is pretty brilliant there.

Yes, he definitely is, and there's so much from your homily that's kind of speaking to us today.

And your new homily, your updated homily on Sunday really spoke to um this question about we're really good at knowing what's wrong with everyone else.

And Father, when you started at Homily, I was like, oh gosh, okay, where are we going here?

Because that's so true, you know.

Um, some of the examples that you gave of being able to like take care of all the world problems if given the opportunity.

Yeah.

So I would love to hear kind of um, yeah, what inspired that direction?

Well, what what inspired that direction was I love how Jesus says, you hypocrites.

And I was wrestling with that.

I was like, well, why does Jesus call them hypocrites?

And here they are, they're challenging him about his faithfulness to God, while in their pocket is this Roman coin that bears the image of Tiberius, that's Caesar, right?

So a Caesar who claims divine status.

But the Jew, this very pious, religious Jew, has no problem carrying it around, using it, having it in their pocket.

And so there's there's a it's there's such they're being hypocrites, right?

And so that's why Jesus calls it out.

So I I kind of I said to myself, okay, this is so our human condition.

Why are we so attentive to the smaller faults in someone else while remaining blind to the much greater problem in ourselves?

And and we saw that in the the Pharisees and the Herodians.

But I think it happens in our daily life constantly.

When somebody loses their temper, we call it anger.

When someone loses, uh when we lose our temper, we're like, well, you know, I was under pressure and things aren't things are not going our way, and it was justifiable.

Or when someone else fails to keep a promise, we call that, no, that person is pretty unreliable.

But when we fail to keep the promise, well, we explain it, well, we're kind of busy and things happen, and it's just this happened or that happened, or we judge other people for their actions, but we frequently job our judge ourselves by our intentions.

And I think that that's a very dangerous spiritual habit because we can spend years constructing explanations for behaviors that God is inviting us to change, and that was the whole kind of backbone of what I was trying to say.

Um, original sin wounds the human condition, right?

And we all know that, including our intellect and will without destroying our freedom or capacity to know truth.

And then pride or particularly is particularly dangerous because it can prevent us from recognizing our dependence upon grace.

And even when you an examination of conscience is not an exercise in safe self-hatred, it's not about, oh well, I'm just pointing out constantly, constantly how bad of a person I am.

No, it's an act of truthfulness before God.

Um because one of the most dangerous things about pride is that it can convince us that our greatest spiritual problem is everyone else's behavior, and we justify it.

We're like we can be super defensive.

Um so I it's I wanted to make it a point that don't worry about everyone else.

We spend a lot of time worrying about other people and what they're doing and what they've done to us, and but we're we're neglecting that we have a lot of to do with it as well.

Our behaviors, our responses.

Um and so it's it's it's it's incredible to me that a homily like this can kind of awaken people to really look in the mirror and say, Oh, I'm doing a lot of this.

Yeah, I mean, you're um you pointed out like at the heart, I mean, sometimes in that gospel you look at the end statement and focus on that, but you're kind of backing up to focus on like what was going on in the hearts of the people that asked Jesus that question first, which you know, they're so focused on trapping him that they fail to re they fail to recognize what's happening in their own hearts.

Right.

You know, and I think I mean that's that's dangerous, you know.

We start looking at other people and um pointing fingers rather than like examining um where we're starting from.

And criticism can really blind us to ourselves.

Um yes, so Father, I know um in your homily you were kind of talking about um like pride and arrogance, how those things can get in the in the way of us being able to like recognize kind of the reality of our own situation.

Um what would be I don't know, despite like despite those being challenges of the heart, like how can you see beyond that if that's kind of like where you start?

Well, one of the things I was trying to focus on is something very important about how we can go to mass every single day.

We can say that we're we're disciples of Jesus for years and years and still be like professional mass goers where I go to mass on Sunday because that's what's expected.

I did that as a kid, or my family expects it.

But it's just one event among the many things that I do.

I'm expected at work at a certain time, I leave work at a certain time.

On Sunday, I'm at Mass at 10 a.m.

I leave at 11, we go out to lunch, and it's just becomes of okay, this is who I am, and this is what we do.

But that's dangerous because Mass is a is the ultimate prayer, right?

So it's the ultimate prayer that you can offer God, but it's also a place of encounter where hopefully you're you're reminded of those areas that need correction, need change, need transformation.

So that, as I mentioned in the homily, that those who know me, those who associate with me, those who live with me can see the fruits of my relationship with Jesus.

There has to be some transformation, even if it's small, even if it's little, they can tell, oh, wait a minute, they're serious about the faith.

How many people do we know that they come to my house every single day or every single Sunday, and maybe they're not very nice?

And it's not judgmental.

We're trying to give examples because I know people like this.

Right.

Uh maybe I'm not very nice sometimes, you know.

But um, is is the faith really changing us, transforming us, so that people can say, Wow, wow, you you you take your faith seriously.

I can see that it's almost like when you go to school at the beginning and you graduate.

Oh, I could see that you went through school, you actually learned something.

You're you're an expert in your field now.

Well, are we experts in our fields?

Or at least are we getting to a premise uh to where we're really learning about how to love him and know him and serve him.

Right.

Yeah, and I think it's I mean, no matter where we're at in the journey of faith, that is a question we always have to ask, right?

Like, how is the how how is the mask changing my life?

Because I think it's a miracle every time we go, but we can be so preoccupied with other things that we can miss it in front of us or not allow it to really go as deep as it's meant to be.

Yeah, because the the measure of holiness, the way if you want to measure, if you want to say to yourself, okay, am I growing holiness?

Am I growing in love of the Lord?

Am I growing in my discipleship?

The easiest way is to see what your behavior's like.

One, when no one's watching you, two, to those who you're closest with.

Because if you're nasty, you're miserable, and you're just uh uh not a nice person to be around, you got to say, well, wait a minute.

This is not sticking.

Something is wrong.

Because before I open my mouth, before I even think internally of something not very nice, I need to be able to say, wait a minute, I love Jesus.

I follow Jesus.

I want people to know that I love Jesus and follow Jesus.

I can't act this way, I cannot respond this way.

I have to hold my tongue, I have to all the forces within me to say, no, you're not gonna lash out, you're not gonna speak with anger, you're not gonna have an attitude, you're not gonna be passive aggressive.

If you're able to really nip it in the bud and you're able to swallow your tongue and to really force yourself to act in the way that that would be pleasing to God, and you're able to do it in that moment live, then you know you're growing in holiness.

Then you really know that you are drawing closer to, and then that behavior, let's say someone isn't being very nice, or you're frustrated with a situation, or something really upsets you, and you're able to really calmly say an interior come holy spirit, and your response or your behavior is that of love or patience.

That's the fruit.

Right.

The fruit's the fruit work.

Wow.

I would not respond, I maybe I wouldn't respond in the way you just did.

You're an example to me.

Wow, what a witness you are to what it means to what Christ is calling us to.

Yeah, that's powerful.

And I think we can all relate to that.

And and also know that the first step is being able to have that self-knowledge, even of like, huh, this behavior or this attitude is not really of God, and beginning to take a step towards recognizing that and then asking God for the grace to change in those little small moments that the opportunity is going to be there.

Exactly.

And you know what?

After Mass, every Sunday, you know, with our parking lot, the opportunity is there, you know.

It's that's what it's meant for, in case anyone ever wanted to know.

It's uh let me tell you, I've seen people, yeah, exactly.

I've seen people really angry after mass because of uh different situations in the parking lot.

So that's a great example.

Just want to throw that out there.

Exercise charity and and growth and holiness by by your behavior in the world.

Right away.

Right away.

So, Father, it kind of brings me to this next point of um the gospel really like Jesus saying, Whose image is this?

And looking at the coin.

Um, I think there's so much of a deeper invitation that Jesus is giving to us here.

Um, the coin bears Caesar's image, but um we have hum we as human beings bear the image and likeness of God.

Can you go a little bit more into that?

Because that has such profound meaning connecting to Genesis.

I mean, there's so many depths to that.

Could you maybe open it up for us?

Yeah, and when I first read, I said, wow, this goes all the way back to Genesis.

Whose image is this?

And it's almost, I was thinking, it Jesus like pointing to your soul, whose image is on your soul?

Well, on the day of our baptism, we were a new creation, and uh Jesus stamp uh yeah, God's love, God's presence, God's image has been stamped on to us.

So you know the coin bears Caesar's image, the human person bears God's image.

We were made in the image and likeness of God.

Think about that, that has implications.

Now, Caesar can make a legitimate claim upon the coin.

Why?

Because it belongs to him, it's it's his coin.

Um, but he cannot make an absolute claim upon the human person.

Why?

Well, because a human person belongs ultimately to God.

And this is foundational to Catholic anthropology, because our dignity does not come from the state, does not come from our accomplishments, it doesn't come from our intellect, our social standing, um, our usefulness in society.

Our dignity is intrinsic because we have been created in the image and likeness of God.

And that's why the church teaches that every human being, every life possesses a dignity.

Um we're in the month of October, respect life month.

It's what do we say from the womb to the tomb, the sacredness of conception all the way to natural death.

Um and this and that's dignity is not something that society can give us, or society doesn't grant that.

It's something society, it is something society is morally obligated to recognize and I think to respect.

And a lot of the problems that we have today is because society does not respect the dignity of people.

Um so being created in God's image tells us not only something about our worth, but something about our destiny.

Um we were created, we were all created for communion with God.

And that's why Jesus doesn't simply want our obedience in some external sense.

What what I was trying to say is he wants our heart because if we belong completely to him, to God, what is what Jesus says, well, then give to God what belongs to God.

We belong to God.

Everything, everything that we have that we do belongs to God, right?

And so it's and so that's why one of the things I was saying is like when you fall into this comparing yourself, when you uh are not really doing that examination examination of conscience about how do I really live a good holy life and how do I continue to walk in discipleship.

If we're so busy looking at our spouse and looking at our children, looking at our neighbor, our co-workers, and we're very good at pointing out their mistakes, their weaknesses, their failures, but we're not doing the heavy lifting for ourselves, there's the disconnect.

Right?

Yeah, and I think what you're you know saying too, Father, is that you know, this inherent dignity, made in God's image and likeness, like we if we know that for ourselves, then we're able to look at our neighborhood through that same lens.

And I think when there's this disconnect, honestly, probably the way that we treat our spouse or children is what we're doing to ourselves, anyways.

Yeah.

It's just a reflection of like what we think about ourselves and the criticism we give or like the lack of dignity that we're giving, even our own understanding of who we are and the way that God treats us and sees us with mercy and truth.

Well, think about what how the world looks at it.

The the world is constantly asking, well, what is your worth?

Prove it.

If you go somewhere and you meet someone, the one of the first questions that, well, what do you do?

What what's your worth?

Um well, what is Christianity?

No, Christianity begins with a whole completely different question.

Whose image do you bear?

Because once you understand whose image you bear, you begin to understand both your dignity and your responsibility.

So I and and that I think is something that young people, especially in college, need to reflect on and meditate on because there's so much confusion right now.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that that's the one track right there that if you don't understand it well, if you don't understand it, it it gets you into trouble with a whole array of other things.

Yeah, and I think the the beauty, beautiful invitation there that God gives us that we're made in his image and likeness, is that we can come to know who we truly are in him.

If we bear his image, then we know where to go to understand who we are, how to live life in a way that brings authentic happiness and what is his plan for us.

Exactly.

So you're like you're saying that responsibility that comes from bearing his image is something that is we should have kind of like on wonder at, because it's it's not Caesar's image, it's God himself, the God of the universe.

So there's just great, I think like on reverence that we should have for how we've been created.

Um, but also knowing that Christ points us to how um we're created to live in a way that brings the best out of us, the the most um highway, like the the greatest level of living, basically, um that Jesus makes us fully alive if we allow that image and likeness of God to truly blossom and be healed and restored.

I agree with you.

And I and one of the things that and you're what you're saying is so important because sanctification is not gradual.

I mean, it is gradual.

Uh what I'm what I meant to say is that it's not something that happens overnight.

Nobody becomes a saint overnight.

Um, we're not saved by our own moral achievements.

Um, but grace is not supposed to leave us unchanged.

And the fruit is the consequence of remaining in Christ.

So when you're like what you were just talking about, that struggle of staying, staying connected, staying there.

I think that it's very revealing um when when people are able to struggle with the faith, right?

And then come to on the other side and say, Oh, I I grew so much because of this struggle, and now I I desire a deeper connection with God.

And that's where that constant day to day struggle of getting to know the Lord more and wanting to stay in the straight and narrow.

Why?

Because it's a gradual, gradual thing.

You build upon, I build upon a little bit upon this, I'm building a little bit upon that.

Um, so yeah, when we think about conversation.

Conversion too, it goes very much into your homily.

You had a few lines here from that I wrote down that I thought were really good.

It's easier to criticize than to repent.

It's easier to demand an apology than to say I'm wrong.

And without humility, there can be no genuine conversion.

So kind of like those the first steps of conversion is being able to, you know, first and foremost, know that the only sin you can claim is your own, you know, and stop looking at everyone else.

But claiming your own and bringing that to God's mercy and allowing him to do that work of healing and restoration.

I agree.

And I think that, you know, apologizing requires us to surrender something that the human ego desperately wants to protect.

And the illusion that we're always right.

Um and there's a profound connection here to the Christian understanding of humility.

Um, you know, if you think of Aquinas, Aquinas treats humility as a virtue that uh moderates our desires for greatness and keeps us grounded in the truth about ourselves.

Because humility is not thinking that we're worthless, it's recognizing that we are creatures who depend entirely upon God.

And then when we recognize that, we become more capable of acknowledging our mistakes.

Because the person who cannot apologize is often the person who cannot bear the thought of being wrong.

And and these and and you get stuck, you get stuck, and um and then again, the ego, the pride doesn't allow you, even though you can recognize it, you can see it, but you don't give in to it because you're stuck.

But Christianity gives us the freedom to acknowledge our failures without allowing those failures then to define our identity.

That's not who you are.

Why?

Because our identity is rooted in God's love, not in our perfection.

It's in you are made in the image and likeness, and you have value, you have worth.

Um, you know, and that means I can say to my wife, my husband, my children, my friends, my coworkers, hey, I was wrong.

Can you please forgive me?

Not because I've lost my dignity, because I have finally understand what is going on, and um, and I desire to live as God is asking me to live.

Yeah, and that's real strength.

You know, even that example that you gave, like that's real strength.

Maturity, right?

Strength and courage, um, and an example, a Christian witness to um to also understanding mercy and humility and what that really looks like.

Um and Father, in your in your humbly too, you talked a lot about that.

Sin can wound and disfigure the image of God within us, but it cannot erase our dignity or destroy God's love for us.

Um, and I think that was a um just a powerful invitation for people to know that we're made in God's image and life and likeness, and although sin can wound us, um, it can't take away the dignity that's there.

Yeah, and that's why I want that's one of the reasons why I used that that illustration with the hundred dollar bill.

At the vigil mass.

Well, I used it again on the Sunday.

Oh, you didn't have to be a good one.

I just I put it like um I put it towards the middle of the homily.

I just did like a paragraph of it.

Um at the vigil was more pronounced, and I I changed it up a little bit because I thought that a lot of people had already heard that analogy.

You've probably heard it, what, like on a retreat or something like that?

Maybe once.

Maybe once.

But it's still it was still fresh, Father, so it was good.

Oh, okay, good.

Because I I heard I've heard it a lot, and I've I the first time I ever heard it was in a homily of priest gave when I was in the seminary.

But um this idea that you have this piece of paper that's a hundred dollars, and it has value.

You can go and you can buy a lot of things for a hundred dollars, right?

And so you crumble it up, you throw it through the dirt, you it's a disaster, it's nasty, it's stinky, but you can clean it up, you can go get a bunch of stuff for a hundred dollars, and it still has value.

Why?

Because someone in authority decided, okay, this piece of paper is going to have a value of a hundred dollars.

And and that's what I was trying to explain that our creator, our our God gave us that value.

He gives us our value, not from what we can do, not from what we can produce or manufacture, or not what we accumulate, or not what people think.

No, no, our value is is is based on this image and likeness, this that we were created by him, and he's saying, You are mine, right?

And no matter what your sins are, no matter what you've done, no matter I still love you.

I'm gonna call you to greatness.

I'm not gonna uh keep you where you are.

I'm gonna hope that you make in freedom the right decisions to turn it around and come back to me.

Um, but I do love you.

And I I I love you regardless.

But I need you to do a couple things.

Yeah, and it's for our own flourishing and sake, not for something that God needs, you know.

Exactly right, because he desires for us to live with him for all eternity.

Yeah, and that I mean, again, that kind of goes back to what we were talking about with how we treat other people is is, you know, do we treat people based on like what they do for us and kind of you know what they produce, or do we treat them with the dignity of knowing that they're made in guys' image-likeness and have infinite value?

Um well, imagine the person who's sick or who is bedridden, or a handicapped person, or uh just someone who's not able to.

So what they have no dignity or their dignity's less?

You gotta be careful.

I mean, we've seen that in epit uh episodes or in uh different times of human history where uh someone who was uh considered not useful treated with less dignity or no dignity.

And so that's very dangerous.

It's very dangerous, and those are the ones that are closest to God.

Mm-hmm.

So, Father, as we kind of start wrapping up our conversation here, I know um in your homely too, you kind of focused on like our closest relationships reveal something about us.

Um what's some of your encouragement when we I don't know, when we think about that question of kind of like the close who are the true measure of our holiness is like the people closest to us, how we treat them.

Um if that's like a scary idea to people, because they um like I don't know, it's what's some encouragement, what's some ways to begin to kind of wake up to see that that's very important, like how we treat those, especially that are closest, that we're most comfortable with, um, that we know their whole life, like how do we start making some changes there so that we can really love them as Jesus is calling us to?

Well, what I would say is I gave homework this week, and the homework was to when you are frustrated, when you're tired and you're uh to really look at those people you live with, the per people that you're closest with, and how do you treat them?

And do they see you as growing in the faith?

Can they say, Oh, my husband, he loves the Lord, he's trying his hardest to be a good disciple.

Oh, my wife, she's really growing in the faith.

She's made some really great efforts because they're the ones who're gonna be able to really tell you if they see the fruits of the encounter that you're hopefully having with Jesus.

And so, what I was trying to say is when you get frustrated and when you want to lash out, when you have anger, uh take a step back, take a deep breath, pray to the Holy Spirit and say, Lord, teach me what what are you trying to teach me from this situation?

What do you want to change in me?

So the homework was uh a courageous prayer every day this week to be able to say, Lord, begin with me, change me, use me, help me.

I know that others may have their things, they may have their faults, they may have their weaknesses, they may push my last good nerve, but I want it to focus on me in the sense that I want to see my faults, my weaknesses, my uh the the moments that I disappoint you, Lord, first, and then through whatever comes out of that to be able then to respond with love to those who I am closest with.

And if I'm able to do that, sincerely do that, then you know you're serious about growing in the faith.

Then you know that you seriously love Jesus and that you want to be his disciple.

You know it.

Awesome.

Well, I love that invitation, Father.

Lord, begin with me.

I mean, that's just a great I said it this morning.

Oh, good, good.

I think that's a great prayer for this week.

Um, so thank you so much for this great conversation.

Thanks, Michelle.

We'll see you next week.

God bless.