Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 02/17/21 To The Heart: Escape or Embrace

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Homily from Ash Wednesday. Return to the Lord with your whole heart. We are often tempted to run away from God and from difficult moments in life. We might even be tempted to escape from all that has been taken from us over the past year. But to choose to embrace this moment is to choose to embrace the Lord and His Providence. Mass Readings from February 17, 2021: Joel 2:12-18 Psalms 51:3-6, 12-13, 14 and 172 Corinthians 5:20—6:2 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

So the season of Lent or Ash Wednesday, whatever, the whole thing we're doing right now, I think it's one of my favorite seasons because it's so clear, right? It's so clear that in other seasons we're kind of like, what am I supposed to be doing right now exactly when it comes to church? Like ordinary time is just, I don't even know, keep going to Mass, I guess. But like Lent is so good because it's a season of action, right? It's a season where it's just you get to do something. In fact, the beginning of mass. We ask the question, what are you going to do for Lent?

That's the question because there's something about Lent that's, I think gives people purpose. Where the idea is, at the end of this season, I'm actually supposed to be different than I was going into this season. And that's so, so good. It's also one of the days, I don't know if you've ever noticed this. It's one of, like Ash Wednesday is one of the days, or Lent is one of the seasons where it seems like more and more people return.

Like the more people come back to church. Maybe this is one of your first times being back in church in a while. And I love this. Again, one of the reasons why I love Lent is because we do something, you have action, there's purpose, and there's something about returning. to God and returning to church that is so just is real. And it's necessary because I think so often, so many of us are tempted to run away. You know, Joel in the first reading, he says,

return to the Lord with your whole heart. And I think so many of us are tempted to run away from the Lord and love him half-heartedly. Or maybe even a better way to say it, rather than run away, I think a lot of us just end up drifting away. Because when we drift away, I think we, we, resort to our default. I think for most of us, our default mode when it comes to life is our default is comfort. A lot of times our default is ease. Our default is homeostasis. We just kind of, I don't want stress. I don't want drama. I don't want the fire starters in my life. I just want this kind of

this ease. I want this calm. I want this peace. I want comfort. I want homeostasis. And yet, I don't know if you've ever heard about this. There was an experiment they did out in Stanford University where they put, they took bacteria and they put them in a perfect environment. So whatever kind of temperatures bacteria need, they gave them that exact temperature, whatever kind of light versus dark when it came to lightness and darkness, they gave them that environment. Whatever kind of energy source they needed, they gave them everything that they needed to see what would happen. What would happen if you put these living organisms in a place of perfect homeostasis where they have everything they need and there's no stresses. What they found was 100% of these

bacteria ended up dying. Because if you give these living creatures, they give these living things an environment with no stress, instead of getting stronger, we get weaker. I think the same thing is true for our faith. I think the same thing is true for our relationship with God, with our relationship with Christ. It has to be challenged in order to grow. If it's actually going to thrive, if it's actually going to be different at the end of these 40 days than it is right now, in order to thrive, it cannot always default to comfort. If we're going to grow, we can't default to ease. And I think if we're going to grow, we can't default escape.

I've been thinking a lot about that word. We're thinking maybe for the last couple weeks about the word escape. I remember the idea, I want to run away. I want to escape. especially now when it comes to Lent. I have a friend, his name's Mark. He is the vice president of a ministry called Life Teen. His name is Mark Hart.

And at one point, we were having a conversation within the last couple weeks. And he has a teenage daughter who asked him, she said, Dad, Lent's coming up. I don't know what to give up because in this season of COVID, so many things have already been taken away from us. I don't know if you feel like that. It's like going into Lent, I don't know what else to give up because so much stuff has been taken away.

so many things in our lives that are so good have already been taken away. We didn't even have a choice of whether or not we were going to give them up. And so she asked her dad, dad, how do we do this? Because so much has been taken away. And then he asked me, Father Mike, well, how would you answer my daughter? So much has been taken away. And I thought, that's a really great question because it's 100% true. So many of our, so much of our lives have been so dramatically affected.

And we didn't even have a choice. But I think there's something that we've done in response to all this stuff that's been taken away for the last year. I think a lot of us in that discomfort space, I think we've escaped, we've run away from the discomfort. I think a lot of us have actually filled up what's been taken away with something else. I think we've already placed, maybe we've even spent the last 11 months putting new things in the place of those old things. Because we default comfort. I mean, just think about the fact that we,

We've numbed ourselves the increase in use of social media over the last 11 months. The increase of the use in streaming services over the last several months. I mean, how many of us would even know the name Carol Baskin if it wasn't for the coronavirus? If you don't know what that is, you haven't numbed yourself sufficiently because, you know, alcohol sales in the last year have gone up over 30% across the country. What's happened is, yes, so much has been taken away, but then what we've done is we've filled in those spaces with things that can just numb us because our default is escape.

So my invitation is this, is this lent to be able to ask, in the face of all that's been taken away, where have I numbed myself? In the face of all that's been taken away over the last year, how have I numbed myself not just from difficult things, where have I even numbed myself from life? Where have I numbed myself from whatever's happening now in my life? There's this spiritual principle. It's called the Sacrament of the Present Moment.

The Sacrament of the Present Moment simply means that God can't be found in the future because the future isn't real yet. And God can't be found in the past because the past is gone. That the only time God can be found is in this moment right now. And the only place God can be found is in this moment right now. and the only place God can be found is not there, but is here. And too many of us, again, we've numbed ourselves because our default is escape. Our default is comfort that we've numbed ourselves from whatever is happening here and whatever

is happening now. So the invitation is throughout the course of Lent, rather than default escape, how about default embrace? Rather than default, I'm going to comfort myself. How about default, I'm going to return? and whatever's happening in this moment, that's where I want to be. Even if it's uncomfortable, even if there's some discomfort to not run away but to return. This is the last thing.

I think there's something powerful about this. If we lived, even if we didn't do anything new for Lent, but all that we did was when life happened to us. Rather than escape it, we embraced it. What is it to embrace something? it's to take it's to take it's to take it to your heart to embrace something right is is to bring it in and even bring in the painful things even to bring in the reality the harsh realities of life to actually rather than running from them to return to them rather than escaping them to embrace them

to actually have the strength the power the grace of god to take those to your heart so tonight doesn't just mark the beginning of the season of lent it as you know you're good father you're going to talk about a series Yes, you're right. You guys are so smart. We're doing it starting tonight, starting this new series. And the series is called simply just to the heart. Because if we're called to embrace life, if we're called to embrace the Lord, if we're called to embrace whatever is happening in our lives,

that means what we're called to do is we're called to bring life to our heart. We're even called to bring the painful things, the things that could hurt us and embrace them and bring them to our heart. But it also means that over the next 40 days, what we're really called to do, He's called to find Jesus and not only return to him with all our heart, but to embrace him and bring him where he wants to be. Because where he wants to be is brought to our heart.