AI Summary
5 min read“Apostrophe S”: You Already Belong to God
The Gospel for this Sunday (Matthew 22:15–21) presents the Pharisees and Herodians trying to trap Jesus with a question about paying taxes to Caesar. Jesus asks for a coin, points to Caesar’s image and inscription, and delivers his famous line: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” Father Mike Schmitz takes this exchange as the starting point for a homily about ownership, identity, and the quiet but decisive fact that we are not our own.
The Apostrophe S as a Theological Clue
Father Mike opens with a joke from the late comedian Mitch Hedberg. Hedberg riffed on the Reese’s candy bar: the apostrophe S on the wrapper means the candy belongs to someone named Reese. If you ever run into Reese, you have to hand it over. The joke is silly, but Father Mike uses it as a lens for the Gospel. When Jesus asks whose image is on the coin, the answer is Caesar’s—Caesar apostrophe S. That means it belongs to him. Give it back. The deeper point: every human being bears the image of God. That is God’s apostrophe S. You belong to him before you do anything, before you choose anything, before you even know it.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:38) **St. Josephine Bakhita's Story** - Fr. Mike opens with the story of a Sudanese girl kidnapped into slavery at age seven, who forgot her own name and was renamed "Bakhita" (lucky) by her captors.
- 2 (03:38) **Mitch Hedberg's Apostrophe S Joke** - Fr. Mike recounts a joke from comedian Mitch Hedberg about Reese's candy bar and the meaning of the apostrophe S.
- 3 (05:55) **Jesus and the Coin: Caesar's Apostrophe S** - The Pharisees try to trap Jesus by asking if it's lawful to pay taxes to Caesar.
- 4 (06:49) **The Temporary Nature of Ownership** - We treat our possessions as permanently ours, but everything is temporary.
- 5 (08:19) **The Three Who Can Label You** - A pastor's illustration about who has the right to put their name on a t-shirt: the manufacturer, the purchaser, and the owner.
- 6 (09:41) **God Created Out of Sheer Goodness, Not Need** - Fr. Mike recounts a conversation with an evolutionary biologist who speculated God created the universe to be surprised and delighted.
- 7 (12:04) **We Are His Even Before We Realize It** - The one who made us has a claim on us, just as the prophecy about King Cyrus in Isaiah was written 100 years before he was born.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Homily from the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
That means that it belongs to Him.
Jesus tells us to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to give to God what belongs to God. But if a coin bears Caesar's image, whose image do we bear? We were created in God's image and purchased at a price. Before we ever knew Him, we already belonged to Him. We are not our own, and we are not on our own.
Mass Readings from October 18, 2026: Isaiah 45:1, 4-6 Psalm 96:1, 3-5, 7-101 Thessalonians 1:1-5bMatthew 22:15-21
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