Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 03/28/24 Three Sadnesses of Holy Thursday

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Homily from Holy Thursday, the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper. We all have unique sadnesses. Jesus enters into all of them. Holy Thursday is a day that marks the gift of the Priesthood, the Eucharist, Christ's humble service, and the beginning of the Triduum. Today, we reflect on Peter, Judas, and Jesus in their unique sadnesses. Mass Readings from March 28, 2024: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14 Psalms 116:12-13, 15-181 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-15

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 John. Chapter 13 verses 1 through 15. Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world, and he loved them to the end. The devil had already induced Judas the son of Simon the Ascariate to hand him over. So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God. He rose from supper and took off his outer garments.

He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. He came to Simon Peter who said to him, Master, are you going to wash my feet? Jesus answered and said to him, what I am doing now you do not understand.

But you will understand later. Peter said to him, you will never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me. Simon Peter said to him, master, then not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well. Jesus said to him, whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed,

for he is clean all over. So you are clean, but not all. For he knew who would betray him, for this reason he said, not all of you are clean. So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, do you realize what I have done for you? You call me teacher and master, and rightly so, for indeed I am.

if I therefore the master and teacher have washed your feet you ought to wash one another's feet I have given you a model to follow so that as I have done for you you should also do the gospel of the Lord we should have a seat tonight I just

tonight I just want to reflecting there's so many things to talk about when it comes to Holy Thursday there's the gift of the priesthood that Jesus gives us at the last supper the gift of the Eucharist himself he gives us the last supper we have his act of service we just proclaimed in the gospel of taking off his outer garments and humbling himself and doing the task of a slave.

And that call that we all have to, right? The call we have to enter into worship, the call we have to serve our brothers and sisters. But the thing that just seems to strike me, I'm struck tonight by the sadness of Holy Thursday. Not just the sadness of this whole event, not just the sadness of our Lord's passion, but I might even call like the three sadnesses of Holy Thursday,

three people who experience sadness in three, very distinct and unique ways. First is the chief of the apostles, right, is Simon Peter. If you ever go to Israel, there's a place called the Church of Galicantu, and it's built where Caius' house was. So it's built over the place where Peter, having followed Jesus from the garden of the Semini, where he denied knowing Jesus. He's called the Church of Galicontu because Galicantu means the cockcrow, right? so the rooster crow. But I'm struck by this unique sadness of Peter. And the unique sadness

is this, is that a lot of times we just think of Peter's denial, right? Peter's, he deny me, you will deny me three times for the cock crows today. And that's true. That happened. But I think, sometimes I forget that Peter, Peter wasn't, he's not the villain of this story. Peter isn't even like completely weak in the story. What does Peter say? Peter says, we know we've heard this so many times. Peter says, Jesus, I'll go with you, I'll die with you. I'll die for you. I'll go to prison with you.

In Luke's gospel, Peter makes that proclamation. Lord, I'll fight for you. I will go to prison with you. I will die for you. And I don't know if you've realized this. He was ready to. And he's not ready to just once. He wasn't all talk, right?

What happens? Jesus goes into the garden and Gatsemite. And he's praying, he's weeping, he's sweating blood. He's going through his agony. When the guards show up, right? When the soldiers show up, someone starts fighting. Someone actually takes out a sword and starts attacking these guards.

Who is that? That's Simon Peter. Now think about this. Simon was, he was not all talk. He was actually a courageous person. As soldiers show up, what does he do? I'm not only willing to fight. I'm going to fight. And he starts to fight and Jesus tells him not to. You know, if you can imagine, here's this man who, again, he's not all talk. He's actually a courageous man. he's not only willing to fight, he does fight for Jesus. And then Jesus tells him to stop. You can imagine that's like, wait, I... Okay, I'll stop fighting.

Even then, Peter isn't a coward. Even then, as Jesus is taken into custody, what does Scripture say? Scripture says that Simon Peter followed them at a distance. So not only does he pick a fight with these soldiers, he also then follows them all the way to the place of Caius' house. Again, Peter is a courageous person. He goes into the inner courtyard of this place where he knows Jesus is going to be accused, where he knows Jesus is going to be on trial.

Peter's not a coward. He is ready to fight. He's actually ready to die. But what happens? Someone asks, are you associated with Jesus? And you have no idea why. I have no idea why. But this man who was courageous, this man who followed Jesus all the way to the courtyard,

this man who was ready to fight for Jesus, this man said no. And I wonder why, again, to enter into this place and think like, okay, what is it? That here's Simon, I'm ready to be yours, I'm ready to fight for you, I'm ready to go to prison for you, I'm ready to die for you in one situation. But all of a sudden, I'm taken by surprise,

by a different situation. This can happen to us so many times. Where we have that sensing, it's that realization that if the situation is right, I too would deny knowing Jesus. Now, you can love him, you can fight for him, you can say, actually, no, Lord, I would never abandon you and realize, okay, yes, but I would, I would if the situation was right. In some situations, yes, you're going to be faithful to the Lord, I'm going to be faithful to the Lord.

In some situations, absolutely, we're going to fight for him. But we have to know this about our hearts, and this is something that Peter discovered about his heart. He discovered, if the situation is right, he would do the one thing he swore he would never do. that Peter had to know this about himself. Again, why? Because Peter is courageous. Why? Because Peter is actually faithful. Because we know this. Peter's actually a good man.

He had to know this about himself, though. He had to know that if the situation is right, you would do the worst thing you can imagine. Because if he didn't know the depths to which he could fall, he could never possibly know the depths of God's love. He can never possibly know the depths of God's grace. This is true for every one of us. Peter had to go into this deep, deep sadness.

And you can imagine, you can imagine, like this, God, why would you make me like this? God, why would you make me so fragile like this? I was the kind of person who was willing to fight off soldiers, but a maiden points at me and says, you belong to him, and I crumbled. The sadness of Peter is not just that he denied his Lord. That's there, but the sadness of Peter is he was willing to fight.

But when the situation was right, he wasn't able to. to. When the situation was just right, he realized how weak, how afraid, how unstable he was. And that's the sadness of Holy Thursday. It's a sadness that we all have to enter into. To really, truly understand how deep our weakness goes so that we can understand how deep God's mercy goes. I mean, that's what Jesus even says to Peter. He says, Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift all of you. this is Luke's Gospel chapter 22, Satan's desired to sift all of you like wheat. He wants to destroy all of you. But I've prayed for you, Simon, that after you have come back, this is the key.

Simon's sadness of discovering the depths to which he was broken, the depths of his weakness, wasn't meant to end there. It was go to the depths, find my mercy even there. Why? so that when you return, when you come back, you can strengthen your brothers. Simon's sadness, the sadness of Holy Thursday in Simon Peter was for God's glory. It was for the people around him.

And the same thing is true for us. Our sadness, God can use it. The second sadness is, I would say, the sadness of Judas. I just always think of this scene at the Last Supper. where Jesus declares, he says, one of you will betray me. And it says, the disciples all look around at each other at a loss as to whom he meant. And think about this. This is just, it boggles the mind that here's these 13 men, including Jesus, right?

These 12 men, just 12 apostles. And they all, when they hear that, one of them will betray Jesus. None of them know who it is. They're all at a loss. The gospel says this so clearly. They're all at a loss as to who it meant. What does that mean? Here's Judas, who's already betrayed Jesus, right?

He's already made a deal with Sanhedrine. He's already made a deal with the authorities that he's going to hand him over. He already knows this, but no one else knew. You just think of the sadness, the isolation. This is the key. Not only later on Judas regerted it, of course, but the sadness of that moment, sadness of sitting in that table, sitting with his brother, sitting with his Lord,

and feeling absolutely unknown and absolutely alone. Because this is what sin does. Sin isolates us so much. is that whenever we find ourselves in a position, maybe you've found yourself in this kind of position where you're surrounded by people who are good, people who pray, people who love the Lord, but you have this plot, you're plotting to sin.

Or maybe you just even know this about your own self, you know this about your wounded heart, you know this about how you've said no to the Lord. And what happens is there's this unique sadness of isolation, this unique sadness of being unknown. And this is such a tragedy in so many levels because here is, Simon, Or here is Judas, Judas, who was surrounded by 11 brothers,

Judas, who is right next to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And he was completely unknown. He was hidden. You think about how many times Judas could have just pulled someone aside and say, hey, you know, Philip, I got to talk to you about something. Or he'd just say, Matthew, listen, this is what's going on? I had to talk with some authorities, and I'm thinking about, they gave me 30 pieces of silver to hand Jesus over.

Like, just at some point, Judas could have leaned on any one of his brothers. At some point, Judas could have actually said, hey, they're walking from down to town. Hey, Jesus, here is something I'm struggling with. But his unique sadness of Holy Thursday is he sat at this table with men who wanted to love him, with brothers who wanted to love him, but he didn't even let himself be known. These people who actually could have helped him, but he wasn't willing to reveal his heart to them.

Later on, there's going to be the sadness of, I wish I hadn't done this, but on Holy Thursday, at the Last Supper, there's this profound and singular sadness of, I should be rejoicing in this moment, but nobody knows me here. Nobody knows my brokenness here. Nobody knows what I'm going to do here.

No one knows my heart here. Not because they won't be willing to, but because I haven't let them. That's the second sadness of Holy Thursday. That's a sadness that can be avoided. And you and me, that's a sadness that can be avoided. Not only can we turn to the people around us, not only is there someone, hopefully, God willing, there's someone in your life that you can trust and you can say,

okay, here's what I'm going through. if not someone, you could turn to a priest in confession and be able to say, okay, here's what I'm going through. You can turn to the Lord in prayer because he already knows, but we sometimes don't give him access to what he knows and to what we know. We don't sometimes give him access to that isolation

or access to that sadness. But he knows sadness. And that's the third sadness of Holy Thursday. It's the sadness of Jesus. You know what happens is Jesus gets arrested after the last supper. enters in the garden, Gethsemini, right, and they take him to Caiaphas' house. And so, again, this is the church of the Gaelic Country.

If you ever go to Israel, that's that church where Peter denied Jesus three times is also where Jesus was held overnight. And if you go there, there's actually a pit. There is a cellar, essentially, that Jesus was kept in all night. And if you go down these stone stairs into this pit, into this cistern, it's dried out cistern, there is scripture, and the scripture is open constantly. it's always open to the book of Psalms, and it's always open to a particular Psalm.

It's open to Psalm 88. And so what Pilgrims will do is you'll go and you'll descend into this pit, you'll descend into this cistern where Jesus was kept overnight and you just pray Psalm 88. Now, Psalm 88 is entirely unique. It's not just unique because it's a lament. It's not just unique because it's a prayer of desolation. I mean, it goes so deeply.

It says the first line is, Lord my God, I call out my day. At night I cry aloud in your presence. Let my prayer come before you and incline your ear to my eyes for my soul is filled with troubles. My life draws near to the grave. I am reckoned with those who go down into the pit and I am weak without strength.

My couch is among the dead. With the slain who lie in their grave, you remember them no more. They are cut off. The tradition is that Jesus all night just prayed these words. Why? Because he entered into sadness as well. Why? Because he allowed himself to enter into the deepest sadness human beings can experience.

You know, all 150 songs, many of them are despairing. Many of them are a cry out of a broken heart. But 149 of them, almost, always end with an uptick at the end. They almost all end with like, Lord, yep, I'm lying among the grave, I'm among the dead, I'm betrayed, I'm abandoned. But you will have God of my hope and I'll trust in you. that almost all of them end with a positive praising of God. Psalm 88 is the only Psalm that's of despairing nature that doesn't end in a happy way.

It doesn't end in a positive note. It ends this. It says, I'm mortally afflicted since my youth. Lifeless, I suffer your terrible blows. Your wrath has swept over me. Your terrors have reduced me to silence. All the day, they surge round like a flood. From every side they close in on me because of you.

companions shun me. My only friend is darkness. And that's the end. Christians for 2,000 years have held to this tradition that this is the prayer of Jesus. That in his isolation, in his loneliness, in his weakness, in his sadness, you would pray this prayer,

my companions, my friends have shunned me. My only friend is darkness. We talk about these three sad, I just want to talk about these three sadnesses of Holy Thursday because we know the first two sadnesses. We know the sadness of our weakness. We know the sadness of thinking like Father Walter Chizek had that sense of like, I realized that I'm not the person that I wish I would be. I'm not the person I thought I would be, not the person I wanted to be.

You can imagine Peter saying, God, why did you make me like this? Why would you make me so weak? Why would you make me the kind of person who actually would betray you? Why would you let me go into this situation where I denied no? knowing you, Jesus entered into that sadness too. We could be in the situation of Judas. We have the sadness of being isolated and unknown. That sadness of, I could have revealed my heart, but I wasn't willing to.

And Jesus entered into that sadness as well. The great and profound reality is that when Jesus became one of us, when God himself, the second person of the Trinity became one of us, he had entered into every depth and every crack of every brokenness and every hurt of the human heart. And he didn't do this with a lifeline thrown out where he's like, I'm going to pretend to be sad. He did it into the depths. So again, as we continue this retreat of the Tritome, right,

as we continue this retreat of walking with our Lord through Holy Thursday, through the Garden of Githemite, through Caivis' house, tomorrow on his way of the cross, to his journey to the grave, to hell, and back again. We know that there is no sadness that has not touched our Lord's heart. There's no sadness that he hasn't entered into. There's no sadness that he hasn't allowed to overwhelm him. There's no depth to which he was not willing to go

so that he could be with you and so that he could be with me. Sadness does not cut us off from our Lord's heart. In fact, it is sadness. It is a broken heart. It is in those moments of isolation and those moments of denial and those moments where we realized were weaker than we ever thought we could be. That we are closest to his broken heart.