Of the vast array of saints in the Catholic Church,  one of the most fascinating, brilliant, and complex has to be St. Augustine.  He lived in the fourth century, so it was still relatively early in the life of the Church. Yet his writings on theology and philosophy were so profound that, more than 1,600 years later, they’re still being studied, quoted, and debated.   But part of what makes Augustine so fascinating isn’t just his brilliance. It’s his backstory.  Because, to put it mildly, Augustine was quite a handful.  For years, he searched for meaning outside the Catholic faith, much to the heartbreak of his deeply religious mother, the saintly Monica – (and by saintly I mean literally… eventually she became a saint herself. So you can imagine what that mother-son relationship must have been like)

Thank you for taking the time to read this homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time — October 18, 2026 (Which is also the closing Mass of our Intercollegiate Retreat for the Archdiocese of Newark Office of Campus Ministry: ‘SOURCE & SUMMIT – The Eucharist.’)
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Thank you for being part of this ministry and for helping these homilies reach far beyond the place where they are first preached..   Sincerely in Christ -Father Jim

Augustine was a rising intellectual star.  He was admired by some of the great academic minds of his day. At the same time he had a child outside of marriage, and was extremely caught up in worldly ambitions and pleasures,  and had spent years exploring different philosophies and beliefs.  But despite all his success, he eventually stopped denying that something was missing.

The death of one of his closest friends devastated him, leaving him struggling with questions that all his intelligence couldn’t answer.  And through that heartbreak, his searching, and the relentless prayers of his mother,  Augustine gradually began recognizing the way, the truth, the life found in Jesus Christ –  proclaimed and handed down in the Catholic Church which Jesus established. He came to understand that the restlessness in his heart could only be satisfied by God.

But there was still one problem… one hangup… one resistance…

Augustine liked his sin.

He had become intellectually convinced of the truth of Christianity.  His heart was being drawn toward Christ. But he wasn’t quite ready to change his life. And so, in one of the most remarkably honest admissions  in all of Christian history, Augustine tells us that he used to pray: “Lord, grant me chastity and continence—but not yet.”

Think about that.

“Lord, I want to be holy. I want to follow You. I want to become the person You’ve created me to be…” “Just not right now.”

He even admitted that he was afraid God might answer that prayer too quickly. He wasn’t afraid God wasn’t listening. He was afraid God WAS listening.

And there’s something incredibly comforting about Augustine’s honesty. Not because misery loves company.  Not because it excuses our sins or makes them any less serious.  But because it reminds us that people like us can become saints. People who struggle.  People who know what God is asking  but aren’t always ready to respond. People whose minds believe one thing,  whose hearts desire it, but whose choices don’t always reflect it.

And I wonder how often we find ourselves praying Augustine’s prayer. “Lord, help me overcome this sin—but not yet.” “Lord, help me forgive that person—but not yet.” “Lord, show me Your will for my life – as long as it doesn’t interfere too much with the plans I’ve already made.”

We want God to change our lives. We’re just not always ready to let Him. That’s what caught my attention about today’s Scripture readings in a unique way this week.  Because honestly, at first glance these regular Sunday Mass readings  felt like disconnected for the conclusion of a retreat devoted to the Eucharist:  Politics. Taxes. A pagan king.

Religious leaders trying to trap Jesus in a controversy.    Not exactly what I would’ve picked to wrap up a Eucharistic retreat.  And in fact, if you listen to most homilies on these readings, you’ll probably hear something about the relationship between Church and State, religion and politics, how to be good citizens while remaining faithful Catholics.  Which are all legitimate things to reflect on.

But beneath the surface there’s something else in these scriptures  that the Word of God was offering that seems for our reflection to tie in perfectly in these last hours of our retreat.

The prophet Isaiah in the first reading brings us back to one of the most painful chapters of Jewish History.   The Babylonians had conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and carried thousands of Jews into exile.  It’s difficult to overstate what that meant.

The Temple wasn’t like our equivalent to St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.   It was more like every possible Catholic Church in the world.  It wasn’t simply the building where people gathered for worship. It was the center of their identity, the sacred place associated with God’s dwelling among His people.  The place where sacrifices were offered, where generations had celebrated their faith, where they encountered the Lord.

And now it was gone.

Psalm 137 captures the heartbreak of those years: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat weeping when we remembered Zion.” Just imagine that. Families mourning the loss of their homeland.  Parents telling their children stories about Jerusalem.  Grandparents describing the magnificent Temple to grandchildren who had never seen it.  Remembering their worship, their feasts, their traditions. Everything that had connected them to their faith. The psalm even asks, “How could we sing a song of the LORD in a foreign land?”

And for decades they prayed. “Lord, when are You going to bring us home?  When are You going to restore what we’ve lost? When are You going to fulfill Your promises?”

And then, remarkably, God answers. But not in the way anyone expected.

He raises up a pagan king named Cyrus, the ruler of Persia,  who doesn’t even know the God of Israel. That’s what is going on where we picked up in today’s First Reading.  God says to Cyrus through the prophet Isaiah: “I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not.” Cyrus conquers Babylon and allows the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple.

After all those years of longing, mourning, praying… The door is finally open. You’d think everyone would be racing to get home. But here’s the astonishing part. Many of them didn’t go. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus tells us that while some returned to Jerusalem, many stayed behind because they were unwilling to leave their possessions.

And when you think about it, you can understand the temptation. They had built lives in Babylon.  Homes, businesses, families.  They had become accustomed to their surroundings. Returning to Jerusalem meant leaving the familiar, making a difficult journey, rebuilding a devastated city and Temple. It meant uncertainty. Sacrifice. Starting over.

And for some, Babylon had simply become too comfortable to leave.

Think about the irony. They had spent years praying for God to open the door. But when He finally did, some weren’t willing to walk through it. And maybe that sounds a little familiar.

Because sometimes the most difficult thing about following God isn’t knowing what He’s asking us to do. It’s actually doing it.

Something similar is happening in today’s Gospel.  We encounter two groups, the Pharisees and the Herodians, who ordinarily couldn’t stand one another.  To try to imagine it – they were worse than the Democrats and Republicans today…The Herodians had made their peace with Rome… Had accepted being dominated and occupied by their enemies with a political arrangement that kept Herod’s dynasty in power.  The Pharisees were deeply concerned with preserving Jewish religious identity and faithfulness to God’s law. So the Herodians were more “secular” and the Pharisees more “religious.”  They disagreed about almost everything.

But suddenly they discover something they have in common. They both want to get rid of Jesus.

And what makes that so tragic is that for centuries, their ancestors, and even they themselves had been mouthing words praying, hoping, waiting for the fulfillment of His promises. They had longed for deliverance, for the coming of the Messiah.

And now… The Messiah is standing right in front of them. The One their ancestors had prayed for.  The One the prophets had foretold.  The One who had come to fulfill God’s promises in ways greater than they could ever have imagined.

And what are these particular religious and political leaders doing? They’re trying to trap Him in an argument about taxes.  Think about the absurdity. They’re standing face-to-face with the Son of God, and they’re more interested in winning a political argument than recognizing who He is. They had become so invested in their own agendas, their own positions, their own understanding of how things ought to be, that they couldn’t recognize what God was doing right in front of them.

So they ask Jesus whether it’s lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. And Jesus asks them to show Him the coin used to pay the tax. “Whose image is this?” “Caesar’s.” “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”  We usually hear that as a lesson about our responsibilities to government and to God.

But there’s a deeper question Jesus leaves hanging with that short sentence. Whose image do YOU bear? Because Genesis tells us that every human being  is created in the image and likeness of God.

The coin bears Caesar’s image. You bear God’s image.

So if the coin belongs to Caesar, what belongs to God?

You do.

I do.

Not simply an hour on Sunday.  Not just the parts of our lives we’re comfortable sharing with Him. Our hearts. Our minds. Our relationships. Our futures. All of us. And here’s where Augustine, Isaiah, and today’s Gospel come together.

The exiles in Babylon had an opportunity to return home,  but some had become reluctant to leave what was familiar. The religious leaders confronting Jesus had the fulfillment of God’s promises standing before them, but these men were too consumed with their own agendas to recognize Him. And Augustine knew the truth about Jesus Christ, knew the life God was calling him to, but wasn’t quite ready to surrender.

Three very different situations. But the same uncomfortable question:

What if the biggest obstacle to God answering our prayers isn’t that He’s unwilling to change our lives – but that we’re unwilling to let Him?

And I think that’s a particularly important question for us this weekend. Because we’ve spent these days reflecting on Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, praying before the Blessed Sacrament, asking Him to deepen our faith,  to draw us closer,  to transform our hearts.

Those are beautiful prayers. But what if Jesus actually takes us seriously? What if He wants to do exactly what we’ve been asking Him to do?  Because that might mean letting go of something we’ve gotten comfortable with. A sin we’ve become very good at excusing.  A relationship we know isn’t bringing us closer to Christ. A fear of what others will think if we actually start living our faith more openly. Or maybe it’s simply that we’ve gotten comfortable  keeping Jesus in one part of our lives while making sure He doesn’t interfere too much with everything else.

And here’s the thing. It’s relatively easy to be Catholic on a Catholic retreat.

We’re surrounded by people who share our faith. There’s time for prayer, beautiful liturgies, Adoration, conversations about God. But what happens when we get back to campus?  Back to classes, assignments, roommates, relationships,  all the ordinary pressures, distractions, and temptations we left behind? Will we allow the Jesus we’ve encountered here to change the way we live out there?

Because that’s what makes the Eucharist so extraordinary.   Jesus doesn’t simply tell us what we need to do and then leave us to figure it out. He gives us Himself.

The same Jesus who gave everything for us on the Cross continues to give Himself to us – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – in the Eucharist. Not simply to make us feel closer to God for a few moments. But to give us the grace and strength to become the people He created us to be. Jesus tells us to give God what belongs to God.

But before we ever give ourselves to Him, He’s already given Himself completely to us.

And that’s where I want to leave us today.

Because Augustine’s story didn’t end with  “Lord, make me holy—but not yet.”

Eventually, he stopped resisting. He surrendered. And the man who once feared God might answer his prayers became one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church.  Not because he somehow managed to make himself holy. But because he finally allowed God’s grace to do what he’d been resisting.

And in a few moments, as we come forward to receive the Eucharist, the same Jesus who transformed Augustine’s life offers Himself to us. He’s not asking us to become saints overnight.

But He is inviting us to stop putting off the holiness He’s calling us to. To stop negotiating with Him. To trust that whatever He’s asking us to surrender,  whatever He’s inviting us to change, what He wants to give us  is infinitely greater than anything we’re afraid to lose.

So after all we’ve prayed for, all we’ve reflected on, all we’ve experienced this weekend… Maybe the most important question isn’t, “What did I get out of this retreat?” Maybe it’s something much more challenging. Are you actually ready for what you’ve been praying for? Because Jesus isn’t holding anything back.

Maybe it’s time we stopped saying, “Not yet.”