Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 02/11/24 Holy Moments: His Moments

Episode Date: February 10, 2024

Homily from the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The moments are holy when the moments are His...and the moments are His when the motive is Him. When something is dedicated, it is transformed. It is elevated and becomes something more. When a moment is dedicated to God, it becomes a holy moment. Mass Readings from February 11, 2024: Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46 Psalms 32:1-2, 5, 111 Corinthians 10:31—11:1 Mark 1:40-45

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 in 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 Mark, chapter 1 verses 40 through 45. A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down, begged him and said, If you wish, you can make me clean. Moved with pity. Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him and said to him, I do will it. You made clean. The leprosy left him immediately and he was made clean.

Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once. He said to him, see that you tell no one to anything, but go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed. That will be proof for them. The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside and deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere. The Gospel of the Lord.

I should have a seat. So, recently I've been thinking about book dedications. Like, you know how like basically every book that everyone's ever read. written, whether it's, there are textbooks that are dedicated to someone, there are novels dedicated to someone, there's funny things. I mean, in fact, the different ways people dedicate makes me laugh sometimes. Like, I don't know if you ever, do you guys ever read Lemony Snicket, the series of unfortunate events?

So there's 13 books. And I don't think Lemony Snicket is an actual person, but he's dedicated every one of the books to a woman named Beatrice who apparently Lemony Snicket, quote unquote, was engaged to get married to, then she broke it off and then died. And so, like, he, but every book is dedicated to. or for Beatrice. And it's like, Beatrice, darling, dearly beloved, dead, you know, for me. It's all meant to be like tongue and cheek, all meant to be funny.

Dear Beatrice, when we met, you took my breath away. No, yours is gone forever. Like that kind of a situation. Like, it's all dark, but it matches up with the novel. But there are some dedications that are just, they change the story for me. So a great children's book, The Lion of the Winsch of the Wardrobe, right? C.S. Lewis. Such a good book.

Well, if you read the dedication, C.S. Lewis wrote this book for his goddaughter, Lucy, who's also one of the characters, right? And the dedication is really beautiful. It says to Lucy Barfield. He says, my dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it, I had not yet realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result, you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound, you will be older still. But someday, you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down. from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I should probably be too deaf to hear and too old to understand a word you say,

but I shall still be your affectionate godfather, C.S. Lewis. It's just this really cool thing that, like, I don't know. That makes me want to actually go back and read The Lion and Witch and the Wardrobe again, knowing that here is not just this children's story, but here is this story dedicated to this goddaughter of C.S. Lewis that he wrote this story for her. And what happens, I think, when it becomes dedicated, it changes things. Another beloved children's story is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by El Frank Baum, right?

So it's made into a movie. Everyone knows that. We all know the story of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I don't even know the story behind it. So El Frank Baum, he met his wife, her name was Mod Gage, back in the 1880s, I think it was. They get married, and at one point they moved to South Dakota, and they have four boys. And those planes of South Dakota, and there's harsh realities that they owned a dry goods store and tried to make a living out there and had to go actually move from.

from South Dakota back to Chicago, and as his boys were growing, he used to entertain them by the fire and just tell them stories about a young boy who got swept up in a cyclone in the plains of South Dakota or planes of Kansas and brought to this far-off land and had all these adventures in this place he called Oz, right? Well, he told these stories to his sons and for his sons, but at one point, his wife, Maude, had his sister named Helen, and Helen had a little girl. Dorothy Louise Gage. And in Dorothy, El Frank Baum's wife, Maude, she saw the daughter she never had. She loved her four boys, but her heart just went out to this little girl, this little Dorothy, her sister's child, and she visited it as often as she could. But at one point in her early,

early childhood, Dorothy became desperately ill and then ultimately died. And Maude, her heart was broken in a thousand pieces, she was inconsolable. And no matter what El Frank Baum would do, nothing could heal that broken heart. So what he did is he wrote down the stories that he used to tell his sons. But instead of a boy who got swept up in a hurricane and deposited in Oz, it was the little girl.

And the little girl's name was Dorothy. And instead Dorothy Louise Gage, took out that L of Louise and put it in that second G. So Dorothy Gale is her name. And then her Auntie M was actually his wife's mom's name. Her name was Matilda. But she always signed her letters. M. So she was Aunt M. And his father-in-law, his wife's father, was Henry. And so he put them in

this story that he wrote, basically to try to give this little girl, to give Dorothy back to his beloved wife. So his dedication is, this book is dedicated to my good friend and comrade, my wife. And again, this is one of those things like you, if you know the story, the story is good on its own, right? The story is powerful, it's unique, it's entertaining on its own. It is a beloved children's story. But the dedication changes it. And it changes. It changes it from being a beloved children's story to becoming something more. It's now a love story. And every page of this story, that's just fiction, it's fantasy, it's whatever it is.

It's no longer a beloved children's story. This is now a love story because of who it's dedicated to. And that's the thing. That's the reality of life is you can take any good action. You get any ordinary action. When it becomes dedicated to something or dedicated to someone, That's when it can become more. Something more.

So we started this series four weeks ago, right? Called Holy Moments based off of Matthew Kelly's book, Holy Moments. And in that book, Matthew Kelly's review, in that book, Matthew Kelly defines a holy moment. He says, a holy moment is a single moment which you open yourself to God. You make yourself available to him and setting aside personal preference and self-interest. In one moment, you do what you prayerfully believe God is calling you to do. So it's just, it's not overwhelming, right? It's a single moment.

It's just, and we talked about this over the last three weeks before this, holy moments are ordinary moments, right? They're just the average moments that come to us where we realize these three powerful truths. We realize that God is here, like God is present, right? Secondly, that God is active. He's doing something in this. And thirdly, we realize that God is, that this moment is his.

Because we talked about, right, holy moments are ordinary moments. Holy moments are present moments and holy moments are shared moments last weekend. But this last piece that we realized not only God is present and God is active. to it, but this moment is his, goes back to what it means to be holy. Again, this is all review. So if this sounds familiar, it should, the holiness we realize is not, holiness is not church stuff. Holiness is not perfection, although sometimes that's what we think, right? We think sometimes the holiness is impossible because it's perfection or, or that holiness is boring because all it has to do with is church things. That's not the case. We discovered that holiness

for something to be holy is for it to be blessed. And again, we think, we think, we think blessed and we think, oh, someone's fortunate, my life's blessed, I'm fortunate, I have good things. To be blessed is to be consecrated. To be consecrated is to be set apart for a purpose. In other words, to be holy is to be dedicated. That we take anything, an ordinary moment, a present moment, a shared moment, and we say, no, actually, God, this is for you. So in the second reading today, St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians chapter 10, What's he say? He says, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. And sometimes we can hear those words and think like, oh my gosh, like, that seems so overwhelming.

That seems so daunting in the sense of like, gosh, do you have to live in church then? And Paul is actually taking it out of church. Yes, everything we do in church is for the glory of God. Absolutely. But St. Paul is saying, he's like, don't limit God's access to your life. and don't limit your access to God by saying only holy things, all holy things have to happen in church. He was saying, no, whether you eat or drink. Everything, whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. What St. Paul is reminding us is that every single ordinary moment can become a holy moment if it's what?

If it's dedicated to him. So if it's for the glory of God. So sometimes, you know, this is the reality. sometimes, as we pursue holiness, we can sometimes think that it's for us. We sometimes think, like, I want to be holy. Why? Because I don't know. I want to be a saint.

Why? Because I want to be known or I want to be important or I want to whatever. In the reality, of course, St. Paul is reminding us that one's holiness isn't really for oneself. We don't eat or drink or whatever we do for our own glory. St. Paul says, actually, do this for the glory of God. So he agrees the question, what is the question? what is the glory of God?

Well, it can be so many different things, but let's make it as simple as possible. We talked about it a little bit about it last weekend. That one of the tasks that we have on campus here, one of the tasks that we have in life is that people who walk through life unseen are seen. That we as Christians who give our lives to the Lord, that we can see, the people who will go unseen.

That the people who walk through this world unknown, that we can let them know what they are known. And the people who walk through this life and they're unloved, that we can remind them that no, actually you are loved. That's all true. But what is the glory of God? To do everything for the glory of God also means this. It also means that he becomes seen.

And everything we do, that He's seen, that God is seen, that God is known, and that because of how we live our lives, that God is loved. In other words, say it, again, to make it so simple, a holy moment, a simply a moment that's his. and a holy moment is simply to have the motive that is him. I mean, what I'm saying, right, is that sense of being able to say, okay, why is this moment holy? Because it's dedicated to him. And why?

Like, what's the motivation? Well, the motivation is so God will be seen and known and loved. So that God will be glorified himself. And this is the absolute, this is the secret, this is the key in so many ways. This moment is holy when this moment is his. And this moment is his when the motive is him. And so it's like make it as simple as possible. Holy moments are ordinary moments.

They're present moments. They're shared moments. Holy moments are his moments. And it's not complicated. And it doesn't have to be a beautiful, churchy, doesn't have to be a happy moment. It can even be a moment of brokenness. It can even be a moment of emptiness. Because why?

Because it's not the moment. moment itself that is incredible, it's the dedication. It's being able to say, this is for you. So years ago, I have a friend, his name is Jeff Kavins, you've probably heard of Jeff Kavins. But years ago, Jeff was in the midst of doing a lot of work for the Lord, a lot of work for the church. And at one point, he had this incredible pain that would go down his arm and would like shoot through his spine, down his leg.

So I mean, the pain was so much that there were many nights he couldn't sleep. Actually, at one point, I remember him describing that his wife, Emily, was driving him to the airport because he was going to fly down to Birmingham to. to tape a show for EWTN. And actually, he woke up on the side of the road, like, passed out. The pain got so incredible that it actually caused him to pass out. One night, he describes, he said he describes one night that he couldn't sleep in in his bed because if he lied down, just, there was no rest, there was no break, there was no reprieve

from this incredible amount of pain. So he said, got out of bed, left his wife there in the bed, and he went downstairs, and he said he was in the middle of the living room, just like lying on the ground. just flopping back and forth and literally weeping and praying to God, just God, do something with this. And out of nowhere, he had this impulse. He had this, out of nowhere, it was the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He was moved, invited to think about one of his daughters. And he said at this moment in our life, one of his daughters was a teenager going through some really, really difficult, you know, teenage things.

And so what he did is he went up, he opened up her bedroom door, and he walked in quietly. and he knelt down next to her bed, and he just opened up his hands. In the midst of all this pain, he simply said, Lord, for her. Like, use this, whatever it is I'm going through. Use it for her. And this is the thing. Again, this is the kind of the dedication that changes an ordinary thing and even a painful thing. Oh, incredible suffering changes it.

It makes it into something incredible. Changes it because of the dedication. Because this is for my daughter. Lord, take this and use this. Again, this is what St. Paul is saying. whether you eat or drink or suffer and can't sleep, do everything for the glory of God. And again, we can get to this place where that seems overwhelming.

How do we do that? How do we do this? God, this is for her, for him, God, this is for you. How do we do that? It's really simple. So like 10 years ago, I read this book by a man named Father Thomas Daly. It was on the spirituality or spiritual life of a man named St. Francis de Sales. And what I read in this book completely changed my spiritual life. And I've shared it so many times in the last 10 years that you probably already heard this.

But if you haven't, if you have, this is a reminder. And if you haven't heard it, I'm telling you this is so important. Because it is a simple way in which we can do exactly what St. Paul said. We need to do, whether we eat or drink, whatever we do, do everything for the glory of God. And the simple teaching of St. Francis de Sales was three simple words. And the three simple words of how do you do this? How do you dedicate everything to God? He said, simply ask, offer, and accept.

These are the three words. But if we were to do this, it would transform everything we do this. did, whether we eat or drink, whatever we do for the glory of God. Why? Ask. He says ask, meaning whatever you're about to do or whatever you're in the midst of doing, just ask the Lord to be present. Now, of course, God is present. He's always there, but we are so often oblivious to his presence. And so, number one, ask God to be present, which means we turn our attention and realize, remember, at the holy moment, God is here and God is active. So first, ask God to be present. Secondly, we offer. We say, God, whatever I'm about to do, whatever this thing is,

it's for you. It's that key, those two words, for you. Lord God, this is the dedication. Whatever I'm, whatever I'm about to do, whether eat or drink, whether I'm going to go to bed right now, whether I'm going to watch a TV show, whether I'm going to go for a walk, whatever the thing is, God, I offer it to you. And the third is accept, which is nothing more and nothing more complicated than resolving to trust the Lord. God, whatever comes out of this, I resolve to accept it as from your hand. This, this three simple words, the three simple words, these three simple steps have the capacity and the ability to completely transform our lives. Why? Because if I ask God to be present,

in any moment, what I'm doing is each moment becomes a sacrament, right? It becomes a place in which God's grace can access my life. If I offer up God every moment, every moment can become a sacrifice. Like every moment can become an act of worship where God is glorified. Remember the whole point, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. If we say, God, I offer this for you, he's glorified. And thirdly, if I resolved to accept whatever it is as coming from his hand, then every moment can become an act of trust and surrender. See, this is the power of holy moments, is that they're so simple and they're actually so simple that oftentimes we forget. But a holy moment is simply a moment that's his.

And the moment is his because the motive is him. And this is the last thing. My invitation is, you know, we're concluding today this series on Holy Moments. Next Sunday, we're starting the series on the book, He Leadeth Me about the life of Father Walter Chiszek as he was a prisoner in a Soviet gulag, slave labor camps for years and years and years in the Soviet Union. We're going to dive deeply over the next six or seven weeks, all throughout Lent, into what it is to truly trust the Lord, what it is to actually walk in faith regardless

of our circumstances. We're going to learn what it is to be able to not look for God's will in each moment, but to realize that each moment is His will for us. That doesn't have to start next weekend. Doesn't have to start on Nash Wednesday. It actually gets to start in this moment. Because this moment has the capacity to be a holy moment. We ask God to be present.

We offer him this moment and we resolve to accept whatever it comes to us from his hands. That's all the holy moment is. A holy moment is a moment that is his. And the holy moment is his. Because the motive is him.