Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 03/16/25 The Place of the Way: The Crossroads

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

Homily from the Second Sunday of Lent. A big life is a series of small crossroads. Life happens at the crossroads. Life is also a series of small crossroads that might seem insignificant, but add up to a life of beauty and meaning...or a life potentially wasted. Mass Readings from March 16, 2025: Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18 Psalms 27:1, 7-9, 13-14Philippians 3:17—4:1 Luke 9:28b-36

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.

He reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke, chapter 9 verses 28 through 36. Jesus took Peter, John, and James, and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying, his face changed in appearance, and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory

and the two men standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them. And they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, This is my chosen son.

Listen to him. After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen. The gospel of the Lord. I just have a seat. So this is one of the things. When I'm flying on a plane,

if the plane has like a seat back, like video monitor, I like to scroll through the movies and whatnot, but a lot of times what happens, is I end up watching the same movies over and over again. So if there's nothing new or nothing compelling, nothing I really want to see, I will watch Forrest Gump. That is my go-to.

The number one go-to movie is Forrest Gump. The other movie is The Intern, if you ever seen that, Robert De Niro and Hathaway. It's fascinating about this. Here's what strikes me about these, both these movies. A, they both make me cry. Apparently I'm going for that. B, the thing about them is they both,

neither of those movies have any kind of, like, big crisis moment. Like, you know how a lot of movies have, they have like the big heist, or they have the big showdown, they have the big fight, they have the big courtroom scene, you know, you can't handle the truth. They have, like, they have the big moment. They have the big crossroads moment, right? Where this is the moment of conflict.

But if you've ever seen Forrest Gump or seen the intern, you realize that just kind of like, no, there's no big crossroads. There's no big moment. It's just kind of like Forrest Gump, this happens, then this happens, then that happens, then that happens, then that happens. That's all it is. Same thing with the intern. Robert De Niro, he's retired, and then he starts doing this and then this, and it's just kind of like, that's the movie, that's the show.

And there's no big crossroads. I thought that's so strange. But at the same time, that's kind of life. Like in a lot of our lives, there's, in our lives, there are a few big crossroads. But it's not that there's no crossroads. It's more like almost every moment of our life. It's all crossroads. It's as if this.

It's as if we're. we live life is one crossroad after another. You know, we started Lent this last weekend or let two weekends ago, a couple days ago. We started Lent a while ago. Here we are second Sunday of Lent, and we realized that as we entered to Lent, this is the time of asceticism, right? But asceticism, as we talked about a couple times, comes from the Greek word acesis, which means training. And so we're not just here to be disciplined. We're not just here to be slightly better, slightly healthier, slightly fewer bad habits. We're here to train.

And training means we have a goal. And the goal is to become like Jesus. At the end of this, Lent, I want to be someone that I'm currently not. I want to be able to do something I currently can't do. So we're training, which means we're entering in like that Jesus' is dojo, like the dojo of Christ, with the way of Christ. And that's why we're following after Jose Maria Esquival, who wrote that book, The Way. We're following after Takashi Nagai, who is that Japanese Catholic man who he dedicated his life to that

training. And that's why this series is called The Place of the Way, which is, English for Dojo. And so last week, we talked about, or two weeks ago, we talked about how to enter that place of the way is to enter into silence. And then last week we talked about how to enter the place of the way is to enter into the desert, basically put down your comforts, put down your crutches. And now, the reality is the place of the way is the crossroads.

Because where we live life is one crossroad after another, not necessarily big crossroads, but just one crossroad after another. It's kind of like in the gospel today. In the gospel, it's a big moment. you write in Luke's Gospel, chapter 9, you have Jesus with Peter James and John. He's on the mountain and there's this big moment of transfiguration where Jesus reveals his glory. He reveals his identity. God reveals his mission.

All of that really big moment. But that's something, that's not the crossroad. We miss the actual crossroad. The crossroad is when they come down from the mountain. Because it says in chapter 9, when Jesus comes down from the mountain, he set his face towards Jerusalem. At the big moment, we miss the small moment, the most important moment for this big transfiguration moment. And yet the crossroad moment is that reality is the mountain was the crossroads. But again, if we're not paying attention, it'll just look a lot like Jesus' life

is this happened and this happened and that happened and that happened and that happened. And we can miss the crossroads if we're not paying attention. So again, following the life of the man, Takashi Nagai, that Japanese Catholic, you know, we recognize that he wasn't born Catholic. He was actually born and raised Shinto. When he went to high school, he got deeply into science. We were really influenced by Western science and Western thought. And so he thought that since Western science disproves the myths of Shinto, that all religion must be wrong.

That he just became an atheist, became committed to this notion that God doesn't even exist. He went to medical school, but everything shifted from, we talked about this last weekend, everything shifted for him at his mom's death. That all of his, all of his professors, all of his teachers said, you know, this is the human body, that's it. But when he was with his mom, as she died, he realized there's something different here. There's something different between my mom being alive,

my mom being dead, he became convicted in some ways of the reality of the spirit. He was also really captivated by the thoughts of a man named Blaise Pascal. Blaise Pascal was a 17th century French mathematician and physicist and inventor and Catholic philosopher. And Blaise Pascal wrote this book, or it's not really a book, it's a collection of thoughts called Ponce's, which is French for thoughts.

And Nakashi found that book Ponce's, and he really respected the fact that Blaise Pascal was the mathematician and inventor and physicist. And he was always, he was very compelled by Pascal's faith. So how can someone be a scientist and have faith? And so Blaise Pascal kept leading to Kashi closer and closer through various crossroads to a place of faith. In fact, one of those crossroads was where Blaise Pascal basically said, if you want to believe, get on your knees and go to Mass.

If you're struggling to, like, actually give your heart over to the Lord, get on your knees, start to pray, and go to Mass. So the gosh and the guy, he didn't, this is one of the crossroads moments. He didn't know how to do that. He didn't know how to pray. And he also didn't want to go into a church and ask anyone how to pray. So what he did was, here at medical school, he said, if I can find a Catholic family, I'll just live with them.

I'll be a border with them and I'll just watch them pray. and so he found the Moriama family. They were Catholics for generations, and he asked if he could stay as a border, as a medical student, and they said no. And so the next day he came back in one of those crossroads moments. He could have just given up, but he didn't. And the Morayama family took him into his home, into their home.

And he just lived with them, and he watched them pray. At one point on Christmas, the elder Moriama, he invited Takashi to go with them to Christmas Mass. And at first, Nikashi said, no. Takashi said, I'd rather not. He declined. And then he changed his mind. And this is one of those crossroads moments where when he changed his mind so much in his life changed because he had never been to mass before.

Even though Blaise Bascale had said, if you want to believe, just go to mass, he didn't do it. But when he got to mass, he wrote about this. He said, he got to mass and something unexpected happened. He said he had this unexpected, this is quote, this unexpected intuition that there was a living capital S someone present in the Urakami Cathedral. That as he entered into this place of prayer, this place of worship, he realized, okay, he sensed God's presence. So he recognized that there is more.

There is someone. But then something else happened. The second thing is, as 5,000 Japanese Catholics stood up to recite the creed, It convicted and confused him. It says like this in the book, a song for Nagasaki, it says, this credo from 5,000 Urukami throats was more like a defiant roar and a battle cry. Why did he feel disturbed? Because he was disturbed.

Was it a sane reaction to fanaticism, all the more unsettling because it was expressed in a very un-Japanese-like way? Or he reflected ruefully. Was he disturbed because ordinary people could make an uncomfortable, complicated stand for goodness and truth, while he was the footloose academic and ethical dilettante could not. You know, that night he didn't come to faith in Jesus. But that night he took a step.

It was enough light he had to take one more step. And that's one of the things that we have to realize. When it comes to crossroads, we want a floodlight, right? We want that million candle power flashlight that I can see way down the road. But typically, God only gives us a little votive candle. right, you know, the little small candle, where it gives me just enough light for one step. And that's where we find ourselves in crossroads. And we find ourselves on crossroads because that's where we live.

That's where life happens. And the question is, of course, how do you know which crossroad will change your life forever? I think the answer is you don't. But they all do. Because, you know, we started this Lent, this place of training. each one of us saying, I'm going to make a choice. I'm going to make a step. We started, you know, 10-plus days ago at a crossroads.

And the crossroads was, okay, I'm going to leave, I'm going to go away from sin toward God. I'm going to go away from distraction and noise to a place of silence. I'm going to go away from my comforts and my crutches to the desert. We took a step, and we just had enough light for that one step. Takashi, after he took that step on Christmas, the next day, something incredible, well, he had another crossroads.

So the Moriamas had a daughter, Midori. And Madori was the same age as Takashi. And she was teaching at another city a ways away. But for Christmas, she was back home. And she had, ultimately, she had appendicitis. And Takashi had to literally saved her life. He carried her through the winter to the hospital. And it was his actions that saved her life.

But in the course of even just carrying this woman, Madori, feeling her her heartbeat on his back. And seeing her face as she recovered, something changed in his heart. Some kind of affection for her grew in his heart and began to wonder if someone like her could ever love a man like him. He didn't have much time to ponder that, though,

because within a month or so, he was sent off to fight in Manchuria, not to fight, but to be a medic in Manchuria. before he left, before he left, Maduri, this woman that also shared affection for him, had knitted him a sweater. I said it's cold in Manchuria, and I want you to wear this, not only as a sign of my love, but also as a sign of my protection. In fact, Madori had gone into prayer. And she said this prayer, this recaptured in the book, the prayer was to God and to Our Lady. And Madori prayed for this man that had saved her life.

And she said, please don't let him die in Manchuria. Please bring him back slafly. she said to God, he doesn't know you yet. Dear Lord, but everyone in the hospital spoke of his great generosity and his dedication to his patients. And then she said, Mary, he looked so sad last night when he was alone. You know what did he lost his mom? Please, Mary, take her place. She said, I promise I'll pray a rosary for him every day and try to write him the kind of encouraging letters his mom would have written to him.

Please help me do it well. As I'm a Dori did as as Takashi was off in Manchuria, she prayed. And while he was at Manchuria and when he came back, there were two moments, two crossroads moments for Takashi. Part of his brokenness was that Takashi would drink a lot and he would go to brothels. And at one point he found himself out with the boys and they were drinking and as they were drinking, they made their way towards a brothel. And one night he was there. He went actually into this young woman's room.

And at a certain moment, he realized, I don't want to be here. This was a crosswood moment. I don't want to be here. And so he said that he placed money into this young woman's hand and then left. She cursed him out. But he writes in his book, he says, he discovered later on from a letter written by Madori, that at that precise moment he wrote,

a young woman was praying for me before a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Nagasaki Cathedral. And that moment was a crossroads moment for Takashi because that's one of his wounds, drink and brothels, alcohol and prostitutes. In fact, when he came back from Anturia,

he arrived at the platform in Nagasaki and he looked out over this city. And his heart was divided. He was at a crossroads. His heart was divided and he returned to Nagasaki with this, he was disillusioned, he had despair, he was discouraged from all the things he had seen and he wanted to find comfort as he had said it in one of two Nagasaki's. He said, he stood up the wharf and looked up the two Nagasakisakasakis. One of the one is the Nagasaki of carnal love, right?

You can find it down in certain areas of the city, places of the night dedicated to loose women, to sake and fun. And in the book it says, close to this. Carnal Nagasaki is the other city, the Nagasaki of Mary, which is also a place of love, but of a love sustained by prayer and sacrifice and service. It said you can discover that second Nagasaki in the Irokami Cathedral, in the Hill of the 26 martyrs, in the Oro Pilgrimshine, and the monastery built by Maximilian Colby. And he stood up on the wharf trying to make up his mind. should I go down into that valley or should I climb that steep hill towards the cathedral? And at one moment, he thought of Madori and thinking of her that made up his mind. He stood at that crossroads and he decided that he would go to the, he would actually go to her

and he would go to the cathedral. And he did. He left the old Takashi and he began to begin to go to the, and he began to go to the cathedral. and he began journeying towards that new man. And the crazy thing, I love the amazing thing, is that crossroads did not only change his life. It changed his entire family tree. That one crossroads, it wasn't a big decision. It was just another decision.

And of course, of a whole bunch of decisions. He went to Midori. He went to the cathedral. And the interesting thing is, it didn't work out immediately. He had a really uncomfortable, awkward conversation with Midori. They misunderstood each other. Then he went to the cathedral, and he was just so perplexed by the fact that he was, He didn't see the fruit.

He didn't immediately give his life to Jesus. But here's the important part. He did set his face in the right direction. That's us. That's us in this moment. We can take that step. In this moment, we're not going to immediately see the fruit of the decision we make at this crossroads. But to take that step and to set our face in the right direction is everything.

That's why Jesus, after the Mount of Transfiguration in Luke chapter 9, it says that he came down from the mountain. And a bit later it says, and then he set his face towards Jerusalem. And we know what that means. That means, another translation says, he resolutely determined to go to Jerusalem. Knowing, knowing what? Knowing that when he got to Jerusalem, he would be falsely accused, he'd be arrested, he'd be betrayed, he'd be crucified, and that he would die. Yeah, Jesus resolutely determined, he set his face.

In fact, Isaiah chapter 50 says this, says, he set his face like Flint. He resolutely determined. It's kind of like Abraham in the first reading today, Abram, right? That God called Abraham, and Abram responded. He took that crossroads, and God called him and he said, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to enter this covenant by cutting up these animals. I'm sitting here. And I don't know if you caught the line.

It said birds of prey swooped on the carcasses, but Abram stayed with them. That he made his decision, and so he stayed with that decision. That he, not only did he come to a crossroads and make that choice, but he just like Jesus. set his face. He, like Jesus, resolutely determined not to leave. In fact, that's what St. Paul writing to the Philippians today. It's just so powerful. He says, I invite you, brothers and sisters, stand firm in the Lord. Why? Because this, this crossroads will not only change your life, this crossroads could help others and their crossroads, even in ways you might never know

in this life, even in the midst of what looks like defeat, even in the midst of what looks like failure. So Takashi began going to the cathedral. Later on, he was going to propose, he would propose to Maduri, but in the meantime, he knew that he needed to get his heart right with God. He went to the cathedral, he talked to the priest, and he was assigned a mentor, he was a janitor, and now here's Takashi, who was this incredible surgeon,

or an incredible physician, and the person teaching him is just a lowly janitor, but he wanted to know everything he could about Jesus. But at one point, he came to this place of, okay, this is the crossroads. This is the, I know that Jesus is who he says he is. I know that he's founded the Catholic Church. I know I need to become Catholic. But when he told his father, his father was incredibly outraged by this, incredibly upset.

And so, Dukashi came back to Nagasaki with that sense of like, what do I do? Here is my father. I'm the number one son. like I'm the firstborn son. I can't disappoint my father like this. And he went to the priest and asked him about it. And the priest directed him to a man named Jinzaburu Morayama. Jinzaburamai is this old old man when Takashi talked to him.

But Jinzaburro told Takashi about when he was 22 years old in 1864. Almost his entire family was killed. And Jinzboro, again, only 22 years old, was around the time. up with a bunch of other Catholics, and they're brought to this place where they were repeatedly tortured. They were searched by a man named Moriaka, who was an ex-Samurai, and who thought it would be super easy to be able to crush the spirit and crush the faith of all these Catholics and bring them back to the Shinto religion. One of Jinzeburo's friends was a man named Yassaturo, who was only 26, four years older than Dendinjaburo. And one of the things they did for him is they

They nailed this 26-year-old into a wooden box, nailed shut, in the middle of winter, into a box that was so small that he couldn't stand, he couldn't sit, and he couldn't lie down. And they just, for 20 days, he remained in this one box in the middle of winter, completely naked until he finally died. Moriaka tortured him to death. Moriaka also realized that Jinzaburo wouldn't crack because his faith was so solid. So Moriaka had this idea, and he took Jinzaburro's 14-year-old brother, whose name was Yujiro.

And right outside, Ginzboe's cell, he had his 14-year-old brother stripped naked, and then whipped mercilessly. He tied him onto a cross. And for 14 days, not only beat him were to pour cold water over his body until his body turned blue. At one point, Moriaka came to his senses,

and he said, what am I doing? He says, am I a samurai? Am I a man? And yet here I am torturing a child to death so the last minute he brought Yujiro to their sister where he died in her arms. So here's Takashi and he goes to this old man, Jensiburro, and he says, what do I do? I have to make this big decision. This is my big crossroads.

And Jensiburo says, not too many years ago, Moriaka's son, this same man, his son, invited me to his home. And his son was now a religious brother. He was a Catholic. Moriaka, the man who had tortured and killed, I think, 36 Christians, Catholics. His son was now brother Moriaka. And at one point, they were at this place where Ujjiru had died and where Yashitura had died. And the other 34 Catholics had died. And he was overwhelmed by this grief, and Ginzaburro fell to the ground and started weeping.

And brother Moriaka, kneeling next to him, also was weeping and crying and saying, I'm so sorry for what my father did. I'm so sorry for what my dad did. to you. And that's where Jinzaburo turned to this brother, turned to his brother in Christ. And he said these words, he said, your father thought he was doing his duty as a government official, that he really believed that the Christian faith was subversive and a danger to Japan. He confessed his mistake in his own way when he carried my brother to my sister, Matsu. He says, you know, I prayed for your father ever since.

I prayed for your father ever since. And I am sure that Jirot prays for him from heaven. knowing that you've been given the faith makes my brother's death all the more meaningful. It's another example of the great truth that you understand better than I do. Brother, God is always in charge. Difficulties, darkness, and suffering become opportunities for new graces

if we keep trusting. Junzeburo shared that with Takashi. So that's where you're invited to do. Trust that. Faith in Jesus is worth everything. Takashi left. Still troubled. until he opened up that book by Blaze Pascal.

What do I do? I'm not at crossroads. And his eyes fell on these words of Blaise Pascal that said, there is enough light for those who desire only to see and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition. It was like when he heard that, there is enough light for those who desire only to see. So he made his choice.

That he would, at this crossroads, he would be a Catholic Christian. at this point he would ask for the priest who had been training under, studying under the janitor to baptize him. And he would set his face firmly to follow after Christ. This is the last thing. This is you and me. This is us.

This is this path. That's this way. That's this lent. This dojo, the place of the way. Your days and our days are not this happen and that happened and this happen and that happen. The place of the way is. the crossroads. And each day we get to decide. Each moment we get to decide. When you started Lent, you decided this is what I'm going to do to train myself to become like Jesus. This is what

I'm going to stop doing, to train myself to become like Jesus. And whether you've done that well or done that poorly so far, each day, each moment, each choice is a crossroad. A crossroad, a choice to become more and more like Takashi, even more importantly, more and more like Jesus. Because Each moment as a crossroad is training in the place of the way.