Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 01/17/21 Hindsight 20/20: The Moment Before the Moment

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

Homily from the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time. We can’t predict The Moment, but we can prepare in the moment before The Moment. While no one can predict the future, all of us can learn from the past. While none of us can control when the big moments of our lives are going to happen, all of us can choose what we are doing in the moments before The Moment. Mass Readings from January 17, 2021: 1 Samuel 3:3-10, 19 Psalms 40:2, 4, 7-101 Corinthians 6:13-15, 17-20 John 1:35-42 Download the Homily Study

So there are, there are so many different, like, gifts, right? When people are leaders or when they're serving, I just am so amazed and so kind of, somebody's, I guess, may be humbled by the fact that there are so many gifted people around, but one of the gifts that I just, like, I don't know, I don't want to call it like a holy envy. I think there's just envy, envy that people have, like the gift of vision.

Like you know the people who have, like, they have the gift of vision. Basically, they can look at the world and say, I can see what the world needs. Like they can look at the community, or maybe they look at the church and say, no, I can see exactly what the community needs. I can see what the church needs. I can see where we need to go.

And I just, I like that. I think I wish I had that. And there's a priest in our diocese who has, like, vision coming out of his nose. He is so incredibly talented, so gifted when it comes to this. In fact, I remember asking him, I was like, dude, father, dude, whatever. Is vision, is it a gift or is it a talent? Like, is it just something you have or something you can get? Because I don't have it, I want it.

Can I have it? You know? And he said, no, no, no, no, it's totally. something you can work on, something you can develop. And this guy, for him, it is both a gift and it's a talent. Like something I think that's been given to him and it's something that he's used. So if you know those people who have that gift of vision, it's incredible, but looking back, you realize,

here we are at the beginning of 2021. No one could have predicted this last year. Like no matter how much vision you had, and about how it's gifting or how much talent you had, at this time last year you could never have predicted the year that we just lived through. I mean, just even think about this. Let's go back to the beginning of 2020. How many people talked about like 2020 vision, right?

It was the big pun of like if you had a sermon series like, hey, let's live this 2020 with seeing clearly. I actually, I was part of a pilgrimage that was supposed to go to Israel in June. And it was called 2020 Vision, like, you know, seeing clearly in the Holy Land. Like yuck, yuck, yuck. But, but America. Imagine, go back, where were you at this point last year? So, like, think about your life.

Like, not just, like, where you physically were, but what were your fears in the middle of January 2020? Like, what were you afraid of? What were you nervous about? What were your dreams in middle of January 2020? What were your plans for, here's what 2020 is going to be like? I mean, I just think of all of the people who are freshmen right now. And you're just going into your senior year of high school.

And you probably, you know, ever since you were a freshman in high school, you saw the seniors. Here's the thing is the seniors, their spring semester, they get to have the senior slide, they get to do whatever they want, they don't have to go to class, and then all of a sudden it was like, you can't go to class, you don't get a senior year. Or even the sophomores, who are sophomores now, last year, you came back here at this point, you had just gotten back from your first Christmas break. You just gotten showing back up on campus and like, man, it's starting to feel like home. and then they were like, yeah, you have to go back home.

Or even our graduates right now, just as they were going into their senior year of college last year at this point, just like, here we are, this is it, I want to make it count. And then it all gets taken away. It just invite you just right now, go back and see how much has changed. Like so many things, I mean, even death that's happened in the last year. So I have this question. It's a vision question.

And the question is, what if you knew then what you know now? Like go back to the middle of January last year, 2020. What if you knew then what you know now? What would you have done differently? What do you realize it would have cost? What would life have been like? And I think we do this, not just with one year.

I think it's an easy thing to do. I know I could do this myself. Like, what if I knew at 20 would I now know at 46? What would I do differently? Because, of course, here we know now, right? Like, we see clearly now, there's a thing, it's called hindsight. Right? When you look back and you see clearly,

you look back and you can see accurately. In fact, what is it we say about hindsight? We say hindsight is 2020. And so that's what we're going to do. We're starting a new series tonight. We have five weeks until Lent. And so we're starting a series from here until Lent called Hindsight 2020.

And you're like, oh, father, that's so corny. I'm going to throw up in my mouth. Are you serious? A, that's a disgusting overreaction. B, yes, we are going to do this. Because looking back, looking back is necessary. Like looking back and seeing the past clearly and understanding it is absolutely important.

And not meaning like looking back with a spirit of regret or a spirit of condemnation, but looking back with a spirit of hope. Looking back and with a spirit of wisdom because this is what God commands as people. I don't know if you understand this. In the Old Testament, keeps reminding his people, here's what you have to do. You have to go back. You have to look

back and you have to remember. In fact, if you're reading the book of Exodus or reading the book Leviticus or Deuteronomy, as God is leading his people through the wilderness. He's saying, I'm bringing you into the promised land. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to get to the promised land and two things are going to happen. One is you're going to have awful days. And you're going to be tempted to forget that I've been with you. What else is going to happen is you're going to one to the Promised Land, and you're going to have some amazing days, and you're going to be tempted to forget that you need me. So both those days, both on the days that are awful, when you're tempted to forget that I'm with you, and those days that are amazing, where you're tempted to forget

that you need me, you need to remember, you need to look back and remember. That's in hindsight, looking back and seeing clearly, remembering well and seeing accurately. In fact, that's the gospel today, right? This is the beginning of John's Gospel, and one of the things we believe about John's Gospel is that John wrote, John's gospel, I know, it's kind of a, went out on the limb for that one. But in today's gospel, John is describing the most important moment of his entire life. We just got to hear it. John is describing the most important moment of the entire life. You know, I think so many of us we miss those moments.

We miss that, those big moments. We missed the goodbye. I didn't realize that was goodbye. we miss the last words they didn't realize those are the last words I'll ever going to say to that person we miss like the moment that I was like I should have been there I should have showed up

sometimes we're tempted to miss those moments but here's John and he's writing again about the most important moment of his life and that moment is the moment he met Jesus and I just think he must have told that story so many times John must have remembered and retold that story so many stinking times that even includes this detail.

I don't know if you've ever noticed this. He includes the detail of what time it was. When he met Jesus, he even includes Jesus. And it was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. It was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. That was the moment. That was the moment that changed the course of his entire life. In fact, that was the moment that changed the course of history.

So when we think about this, this is Jesus' first calling of his first disciple. and that's changed the entire world. And it was at 4 o'clock. And John, no matter how much vision he had, he never could have seen it coming. In hindsight, though, in hindsight, he can see so clearly. In hindsight, he can say, it all began there

at 4 in the afternoon. So, for the last couple months, I've been praying about this, but I haven't been praying about 4 o'clock. for whatever reason, every time I pray about this moment, I always pray about 359. I pray about the moment before the moment.

Because, you know, for so many of us, we can't control, we can't foresee, we don't have the vision of the moment. But hindsight can teach us something. Hindsight can help us be aware of the moment before the moment. Because as we all know, right, there's so much of life we can't control, we can't control circumstances,

we definitely can't control other people. try and try. We can't control other people. We can't control tragedies in our lives. Can't control viruses. We can't control politics or governments. We can't control the moment, but we can choose what we're doing in the moment before the moment. I think that makes all the difference. So we have to ask the question. What was John doing in the moment before the moment? What was John doing, not at 4 o'clock? What was John doing at 3.59? He was at the River Jordan. You know, John, was raised on the Sea of Galilee, right? He had a profession. He had a work to do with his brother on the Sea of Galilee. He was a fisherman. But he had journeyed all the way from northern Israel,

multiple days' journey to go to the Jordan River. Why? Because he was looking for something. He was seeking out God. He heard there's this guy named John the Baptist, and he's like, well, he's got my name. I might as well check him out. And he sought out John the Baptist because he thought, maybe if I go there, I can encounter God. And so he looked. And crazy, he found him. Now, we can do this. We can do this. We can do this. We can is one of those things where we're like, you look at John, the Apostle, and he meeting Jesus, being called by Jesus, and we can look at it and be jealous and be like, lucky. Remember we used to do that, middle school?

Someone would do something awesome. You're like, whatever, lucky. So 2002, World Youth Day, Toronto. We had a huge contingent from the Diocese of Duluth go out to Toronto to meet the Pope. And at one point, it was the Pope's first day in the thing. And we were all going to go to his audience and hear his talk and this whole thing. excited. And at one point we got there, and I look up, and on the Jumbotron, the Jumbotron is even like I hardly can see that thing. I was that far back. On the jumbotron, though,

sitting at the feet of Pope John Paul II was one of our youth ministers with like four of his youth sitting right there. The entire time John Paul II was there, this guy was like holding onto his foot. He wasn't, but I would have been doing that. But he was there the whole time. And I remember looking and like, oh, lucky. Like it was one of those things. This is his life, right? He typically, he's in those situations where it's like, how did you, what? How did you get there. He wasn't lucky. What happened was the night before, he knew where John Paul the second was going to be, and he asked everybody, he said, you guys, I'm getting up really, really early with any of my youth that want to come with me, and we're going to go down there early,

and we're going to wait, we're going to fight our way to the front of the line, and we're going to wait there the entire day. No, he didn't come in until the late afternoon, so here's this guy getting up at 3 o'clock, 3.30, and marching on the way down there and pitching his tent, essentially, and saying, I'm going to stand here as long as I came. So that's what he did. I said, I'm going to sleep. I do not want to stand him. spot for the entire day and waste the entire day. But he did. And so he's standing there at the fence and the person who was organizing World Youth Day walks by and he recognizes him as someone who knew our bishop at the time. So he calls out this guy's name and says, hey, we're from the diocese

Duluth, Bishop Schnur. So the guy was like, oh, nice to meet you, et cetera, walks away, comes back half hour later and says, I need five of you to come with me. And so he says, okay, I'm going. And then four youth, jump the fence. And then pretty soon, he escorts them up to the stage and says, wait here, John Paul, this second's going to be here in like half an hour. Lucky. He didn't get there because he was lucky. He didn't get to experience that moment because he was lucky. He got to experience that moment because in the moments before the moment,

he was putting himself in a position for something incredible to happen. That's exactly what Samuel's doing in the first reading. Right? In First Samuel, it says, in those days, we didn't hear it, but it's in the chapter three, which we heard today, says in those days, it was rare that anyone heard from the Lord. No one heard from God in those days. And yet here is Samuel, and God calls his name, Samuel. And again, we can say, Lucky, this big moment.

No, what was Samuel doing in the moment before the moment? He was literally sleeping in the tabernacle. He was sleeping in the temple in the place where the ark was. You know, how often we hear people who say like, yeah, I was praying and God was saying this, and God was telling me this, and God was speaking to me, and he's leading me. And you're like, man, lucky. that's because they're showing up and they're praying, as opposed to me who's just like,

maybe before I go to bed, maybe for meals. What we're doing in the moment before the moment makes all of the difference. Samuel had parked himself in God's presence, and when God spoke, he was ready. You know, the most incredible thing about these moments, these aren't just any moments with John the Evangelist and Samuel. These are the moments that they met God in a way that changed their lives.

I don't know if you've ever heard those people give their testimony, give their conversion story of how they met Jesus for the first time. Usually it's really dramatic, right? Maybe you hear those stories where it's super dramatic and they're like, yeah, I used to sell drugs and I was down and out and I had nothing. And then all of a sudden Jesus showed up and I was like, incredible. I remember used to being, again, holy jealousy, hearing those stories being like, what the heck?

Like my conversion story was I was raised Catholic and it worked. But then I realized, because I thought I didn't have a story, I thought he didn't have a moment. I didn't realize that. that I had a moment. Because I didn't realize that until like 10 years ago. That moment that I realized at a moment was I was reading a letter from Pope Benedict, the 16th,

in a letter he called God is love. And on the first page, in the second paragraph, Pope Benedict says this. He says, being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty ideal. It's not the result of like, I want to do good or I want to, like, shoot for the gold. He says, being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice

or lofty ideal. being a Christian is the result of an encounter with a person that gives one's life a new horizon and sets it in a decisive direction. In those words, I was like, wait a second, that is my story. I had told so many people this story, and this is the story, maybe you've heard it, that I said it was raised Catholic and it worked, but it didn't work right away.

Like, I hated going to church. I hated being Catholic. I hated everything about religion. I hated everything about prayer, hated everything about mass. But at one point when I was about 15 years old, I had this, like, deep conviction that the sins weren't just something out there. Sin was something in my heart.

Like, I was just, it was like, oh my gosh, sin is something I do. And I need two things right away. First thing I knew, oh my gosh, I need to pray. And the second thing is that I knew I needed to go to confession. I didn't know that you have to wait until Saturday. There's like actual times for confession. So I just, I know where the priest lives. I can track him down.

So literally 10 o'clock on a Tuesday morning, I get in my bike, and ride across town, go to the priest. priest's house, knock on the door, and he was there, of course, because priest only work one day, a week. And he opens the door, and I was like, Father, can I go to confession? Sure, come on in. I sat down on the couch, went to confession. I got to tell you guys, when I walked out of that house, I stepped off that porch, and there were three, like, so clear and so powerful thoughts in my mind. The first thought was, oh my gosh, God, thank you so much. I had so much gratitude. God, I walked in here with so much sin, and you set me free. I came here as a sinner, and you

made me new. I was so grateful. My second thought was, God, if you want me to be a priest, I'll hear anyone's confession, any time they ask. I'd never, ever thought about being a priest before. Never, ever, as long as I lived, never thought of being a priest. But I can look back right now and think where I am standing, literally right before you right now, all goes back to that moment. And that was the moment that God, I met him in confession, and he gave my life a new horizon. And he set it in a decisive direction.

So my first thought of his head was, God, thank you so much. Second thought was, you want to be a priest, I'll hear anyone's confession whenever they want. My third thought was, oh, she's really cute. Thus began the drama of my life. But I realize, what if I knew then, what I know now? What if I knew that that was going to be the moment? I hopefully would have still gotten on my bike and stalked the priest, but I think it would have done it differently.

I think it would have done it with more joy. I think I would have done that with more boldness. I think it would have done that with more courage. I think I would have done that with even more eagerness, because this is going to be the moment. So this is the moment before the moment. Even in moments when we've screwed up, right, even moments where we've just completely messed up,

even those moments where tragedy has touched our lives, or where tragedy has scarred our lives, that what we're doing in the moment before that moment can make all the difference. That's why for the next five weeks we want to see in a new way because hindsight 2020 reveals that I can never predict the moment, but I can prepare in the moment before the moment. And this is the last thing.

I know talking about like 2020 is like it's the past. That might sound like I'm saying the pandemic is over and everything's going to be fine. It's not, and I'm not saying that. In fact, I think that I believe that we're going into, deeper and darker days. I think we're going to head into this very difficult times. But that's why we're doing this series.

Because we're in the midst of darkness and we're in the midst of difficulty and we're in the midst of like being tired of it and we can't see the future. No matter how much vision we have, we can't see the future, but we can see the past. And with hindsight, 2020, we can look back and we can understand.

God, this is how you talk. With hindsight 2020, we can look back and we can say, okay, God, this is who you've reminded me to be. With hindsight 2020, we can look back and say, God, this is where you've been faithful. And I really believe that with hindsight 2020, we can look back and learn so that we can live forward with wisdom and with vision.