Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 01/07/24 Worship is the Only Proper Response

Episode Date: January 6, 2024

Homily from the Epiphany of the Lord. We give God our best, our heart, and what He has asked for. As we know, the heart of religion is worship. But we need to put our hearts into worship. We give God our best, our heart, and what God has asked for. Not because He needs anything, but because it is right and just. Mass Readings from January 7, 2024: Isaiah 60:1-6 Psalms 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-13Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6 Matthew 2:1-12

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this and other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Chapter 2, verses 1 through 12. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, behold, Magi from the East arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage. When King Herod heard of this, he was greatly troubled in all Jerusalem with him. Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,

he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written through the prophet, and you Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, since from you shall come a ruler, who is to shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod called the Magi secretly

and ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage. After their audience with the king, they set out, And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.

They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way. the gospel of the Lord. Praise to Lord Jesus Christ.

Wait you to have a seat. So the heart of this feast, the feast of epiphany is recognition that at one point, at this point, this moment in history, that Jesus is revealed to the nations. Right. So that we recognize this, that how God has revealed himself slowly over the course of time. First, he calls one person, right, Abraham, and then his family. And then it keeps growing, growing, growing, the people of Israel. But at this moment, at the moment, Jesus Christ, and. enters into the world, the moment God breaks into the world. God is revealed to the nations in a

remarkable way. And so the feast of like epiphany that the wise men coming is not just that God has revealed himself, it's also that he's been recognized. So he's not just revealed to the nations, he's recognized by the nations. And then there's this response. And this is the big question, when God reveals himself? What is our response? Because our response, well, it's, it gives me the response of Herod, which is God's into the world. I don't want him in the world. God is in the world, I want him out of the world. That's Herod's response. Our response could be indifference or ignoring God.

But what is the proper response that any of us could have to God? I would say that that response is the most important thing in the world. In fact, just last week at Sikh, we had a focus national conference, I gave a little talk on this topic. And it is maybe one of my favorite things in the world to talk about because the only proper response to God, again, is not, get God out of the world, it's not ignorance or not indifference. The proper response to God is worship.

That you've maybe heard me say this a thousand times, that the heart of all religion, every religion that's ever existed, has to be the heart. It's not just the creed, not just what we believe, although that's very important. It's not morality or how we behave. That's very, very important as well. But the heart of religion is worship.

And that a religion without worship is not actually a religion. It's a philosophy. And philosophies are not bad, but they're not the same. A philosophy is, I want to live my life according to a certain set of beliefs. That's wonderful. That's great. But religion is about relationship with God. And the heart of religion, the heart of our relationship with God is worship.

And that's in every single one of our hearts. If you've ever experienced any kind of contact with God, if you've ever, if you've ever personally encountered the Lord in any kind of way, one of the first ways we respond to God is, what can I give? It's that response that comes from our heart that just says, okay what do I do what can I give God not again not clarify this because the scripture reveals this very very clearly that we don't worship God because he needs anything we don't give him something because he needs anything at all our worship to God is not for God it's because worship is the only possible response to the source of

all being worship is the only possible response to being in this world and realizing that there is a creator. Worship isn't just, doesn't just come from a place of love. I mean, that's wonderful if it does, right? Wonderful if we fall in love with the Lord and we're like, I want to give you whatever you ask for, I want to worship you and praise you. That's awesome.

But worship is actually not a matter of love initially. Worship is a matter of justice. In fact, I think we even, I'll kind of say this. We're going to say this in a few moments in the Mass. I'll say, Lord be with you with your spirit, lift up your heart, we lift up to the Lord. and then I'll say, let us give thanks to the Lord our God. And you'll say, it is right and just.

Let's give thanks to the Lord. It's right and just. I'll go on to say, it is truly right and just. Our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks. Now pause on that for a second. What we claim at every mass is that giving God thanks and praise is not only right and just, not only our duty, but it's our salvation. that without worship, we're without salvation.

That it is not only right and just, not only our duty, it is our salvation always in everywhere to give God thanks. It's our salvation, always in everywhere, to give God worship. Which is one of the reasons why we have to put our heart into it. I mean, it's so critical. Again, the heart of religion is worship. It is our right, is just, it's our duty, it's our salvation. And so because of that, what do we offer God?

That's a big question, right? do we offer God? We'll go back to the first ever moment of worship in the Bible. The first moment of worship we have in the Bible comes from the book of Genesis. And we have two brothers, right, Kane and Abel. And both of them worship God. Because why? Because the proper response to God is worship. God, I want to offer you something. And what happens? Well, God accepts Abel's sacrifice, but doesn't accept Cain's sacrifice. We don't really know exactly why. Why does God accept the sacrifice of Abel? but he doesn't accept the sacrifice of Cain. There have been many, many people for thousands of years

who have tried to dive deeply into this. And one of the theories is that Abel gave from the best of his flock. That Abel gave to God what mattered to him. Right? It doesn't matter to God. But Abel gave to God what mattered to Abel. Whereas Cain would have given to God something less. I mean, this is so many of us, this is right. Isn't this our hearts sometimes?

We're made to be like able to give God our best. But we live like Kane and we give God our leftovers. We give them just whatever we don't want. And this happens when it comes to our money, when it comes to our time, when it comes to our attention. It's like, if I don't have anything else to do, God, yeah, here you are. Here's some, my gift to you, my sacrifice to you. And yet, in those two sacrifices, it's so clear for us and so helpful for us to realize,

one sacrifice was accepted, the other sacrifice wasn't accepted. And the theory, again, is that Abel gave God his best, and Cain gave God whatever was left. And also the theory is that Abel put his heart into it, that he didn't just show up and go through the motions. But he gave God his best, and he gave God what he asked for. And this is the next thing. When it comes to worship, what do we do?

with it. The heart of religion is worship, and we sacchar, the heart of, and as they keep going, say the heart of worship is sacrifice. Here's Abel, who gave not only his best, but also put his heart into it. He also would have given God what God asked for. So I go over this with our students a bunch of times. We do a teaching mass, I think we do it last year. And in the teaching mass, one of the things I highlight is in the book of Exodus, right, to hear the people of Israel, and they're enslaved in Egypt. And at one point, God calls Moses to go to Pharaoh and say, tell Pharaoh, let my people go. Now, I used to highlight this. I always used to miss this part of the book of Exodus

where God says to Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh, let my people go. I just thought, yeah, let them go free because why doesn't God want his people to be free? That's it. That's the whole story. But that's not what God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh. He says, go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh. The Lord God says, let my people go so that they can come and worship me. that the whole point of God setting his people free from slavery is so they could be free for worship.

This is so important for everyone of us. If we miss this, we just think, oh, God sent me free for me. God sent me free so I can live the life I want to live. And yes, of course, he loves you, wants you to live in freedom. God sets us free from slavery to set us free for worship. So we know the story, right? Moses goes before Pharaoh and says, God says he wants us to be free. And Pharaoh says, nope, get out of here.

and so a couple of plagues happen and Pharaoh says, fine, fine. You can take the men and go worship your God. But Moses says, no, we need the women and children as well. We're all made to worship God. That's true. Every one of us is made to worship God. We all have to go. Pharaoh says, no, get out of here.

A couple more plagues happen. And Pharaoh says, okay, fine. You can take the men, the women, and children and take whatever animals you're going to need to worship God. And this is the moment where Moses looks at Pharaoh and he says, no, we have to take everything. We can't just take men and women and children. We can't just take a couple things because, he says,

when we go to the place that God wants to be worshipped at, we don't know what he's going to want. We don't know how he's going to want to be worshipped. So we need to take everything. Now, when I was younger, I used to think, like, that's not tricky. That's, you know, Moses, you sly fox. I remember that thought of like, he's just tricking. He's kind of lying to Pharaoh.

But Pope Benedict wrote about that, and he was like, Dear Father Mike, he wasn't lying. He wasn't tricking. He meant it that when Moses told Pharaoh, no, we have to take everything because we don't know how God wants to be worshipped. He was telling the truth. because in so many ways, if the heart of religion is worship,

and we have to put our heart into it, give God our best, the big question is, God, how do you want us to worship you? Here are the Magi, when God revealed himself to them, and they recognized, here is Jesus, here's the Messiah. They give God their best, gold, frankincense, smur. They bow down and do him homage. They worship him in this moment. So we'd say, okay, I'll give God my frankincense.

I'll give God my my my gold. No, God, how do you want me to worship you? This is the heart of this. Because if I just give God what I want to give God, then I will be stuck in slavery. If I just, if I worship God the way I want to worship God, I will not be worshipping God. I will be worshipping myself.

And I've told this story a thousand times. So I apologize if you've heard it a thousand times. But back when I was a kid, whenever my mom's birthday came here, which came around once a year, usually. And usually on November 4th, my mom had a birthday and us kids. I remember one year in particular, because I remember all the things that we did. One year were like, mom, what do you want for your birthday? What do you want us kids to do for your birthday? My mom said, actually it'd be really great if you guys would just clean the house from top

to bottom. Like, mom, no, like, what do you really want for your birthday? And she'd say, okay, actually, if you could go outside and rake the yard, that'd be great. And I'm like, ah, mom, no, no, really, seriously. What do you really want for your birthday? And she said, I remember, she said, well, if you guys would just not fight all day, that would be a great present. I'm like, mother, you don't really know who we are, do you? They don't know your children very well. So what happened, again, this is true story. What happened was my two older sisters, they borrowed some money, borrowed the car, I went to the mall, and bought something from my mom because they liked driving and liked shopping. Now, older brother and I, we took our BMX bikes

and rode around all day, and at the end of the day, we actually did this. At the end of the day, we called our mom out onto the front step, and mom, we want to show you this bike trick that we learned for you for your birthday. And my little brother, he was, I don't know, he really little at the time. He, like dinosaurs, so he took a picture of the dinosaur, your mom, happy birthday. So my mom, he's a good mom, right? She just, she received all the gifts. She said thank you. But she knew also. She knew the truth. And the truth is, that's not what I asked for. But the truth is, you asked me what I wanted and then you gave me what you wanted to give me. In those moments, in that moment, we weren't loving our mom. We were loving ourselves. Mom, I want to do

something for you. Actually, I want to do it for me. And this is the key for all, for so important for all of us, especially for Christians. Why? Because God has made it absolutely abundantly clear how he wants to be worshipped. At the last supper, before he gave himself in sacrifice, what did Jesus say? He says, actually take this all of you and eat of it. This is my body given for you. And at the end of that meal, took a chalice filled with wine, take this all of you and drink of it. This is the blood of the new and eternal covenant. This is a of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins, do this in memory of me. And that moment, every Christian, every Christian for 1500 years

said, that's what Jesus wants us to do. He wants us to offer up the great sacrifice of himself to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. And so the question is, what do we do? Well, I don't really like going to Mass. I don't get a lot out of it. I kind of want to say good. because worship is not about what I get. Worship is all about what I'm giving. At the beginning, Abel, I give God my best. What better do we have than God himself?

Abel, put his heart into it. How many times do we show up to Mass and just like, I'll go through the motions and not put my heart into offering up the sacrifice and to give God what he asks for? How many times could you and I abstain to say? sent ourselves from Mass and say, well, I really got a lot more out of a non-Catholic service down the road. Okay, fine. You might get a lot out of, you might get a lot more out of

a non-Catholic service at some point. But it is impossible to give more than what we give at a Catholic Mass. It is possible, impossible to do more than we do at a Catholic Mass. It is impossible to offer a better sacrifice than is offered at every single Catholic Mass because it is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of the Father, to the Father, and the power of the Holy Spirit. And nothing, nothing in this world compares to it. Nothing in this world compares to this worship. Because this is not a table. This next to me is an altar. There are a lot of non-Catholic churches that have tables. That's fine. That's whatever they're doing, they're doing. Catholic churches have altars. Why? Because the heart

of religion is worship and the heart of worship is sacrifice. And this is where that sacrifice is re-presented to the Father. I'm so struck by this. Last two things, quick. I shared this with our students last year. I've had the opportunity to go to Israel a number of times. And one of the things they have is a church called the Church of the Holy Sepulgar. Church of the Holy Sepulgar, right?

It's a big church built over Galgatha, where Jesus died and offered himself up for our sins, and over the tomb, where Jesus conquered death and rose from the dead. It's this big church. So they close it every night around 9 o'clock or so at night. And you can get locked in if you want. usually they have about 12 people or so they accept and you kind of lock in. And there's a couple rules. You can't sing, you can't sleep, and you can't like candles.

But you get to just pray in the tomb. You get to pray at Galgitha. At midnight, though, the Orthodox, they start their liturgy. Now, the Orthodox do have the real mass. They have the real sacrifice of our Lord Jesus because they really have the priesthood. And what they do is from 12 a.m. until about 3 a.m. For three hours, they have what they call the Divine Liturgy,

where they go to all the altars around the course of the Holy Sepulcher, and they offer up the sacrifice of Jesus to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit, and no one sees it. And no one hears them preach because they don't preach. They just worship. They just pray. You think, what a waste, three hours every single night, and no one sees it. After them, it's the Armenians, and they also have legitimate priesthood.

And so they offer up their sacrifice, and no one sees it. And then the Catholics go, and no one sees it. You think, what is happening? Well, what's being declared is the Mass is not just where we get taught something. The Mass is not where we are trying to recruit people to be part of this thing. The Mass at the heart of the Mass is the sacrifice of the Son to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. At the heart of the Mass is the sacrifice of worship. And even if no one's there, God is worth worshipping.

Even if no one else participates, we do it because God is worth worshipping. even if the Catholic Church, you know, even if every church was empty, but we still had the priest. And whoever, that small group of people that was gathered around the priest who was able to offer the sacrifice, it would still be worth it and it would still change the world because this is the actual last thing. What happens at every mass? Regardless of whether music's amazing, regardless of whether the preaching is great, regardless of any other factor.

What happens at every single mass is you know what happens. I mean, actually, I know that the focus of missionaries with us and Ali who's singing and Lauren who's with us, They all know the answer. They all know the answer. And I'm guessing you at home, you actually know the exact answer of what happens at every single mass. And my guess is that you could even tell me word for word in unison if you wanted to what happens, what occurs, what God does at every single mass. And the answer, of course, I'm going to actually ask them to participate in this.

If I were to say, pray my brothers and sisters that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father. You might say... What's that the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name? For our good of all this holy church. May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands. Number one, for the praise and glory of his name. Secondly, for our good and the good of all is Holy Church. What happens at every single mass?

You have been saying this your whole life, but you may not have realized what happens at Christian worship, a Catholic worship, at the Catholic Mass, is the Father is always glorified. And the world is always sanctified. At every Mass, even if no one else is there, even if no one else sees it, even if the music is horrible and the preaching is, goes on and on and on, or is not existent,

what happens is the Father is glorified. And this world is saved. The only proper response, when we recognize God, when we come into contact with God, is worship. And worship where we give him our best, where we put our heart into it, and when we give him what he's asked for.