Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 04/07/24 Justice or Mercy?

Episode Date: April 6, 2024

Homily from Divine Mercy Sunday. Mercy is the love we need the most and deserve the least. We all want to get what we deserve. We want justice, and God is Just. But there are times when we need something more than justice...there are times when we might deserve justice, but need mercy. Mass Readings from April 7, 2024: Acts 4:32-35 Psalms 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-241 John 5:1-6 John 20:19-31

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 20 verses 19 through 31. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, Peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this, on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained. Thomas called Didimus, one of the 12, was not with them when Jesus came,

so the other disciples said to him, we have seen the Lord, but he said to them, unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. Now, a week later, his disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, Peace be with you.

Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe. Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.

The Gospel of the Lord. Wait you to have a seat. So there's something, I got to go home over Easter break, just, I mean, for like 24 hours, 23 hours, something like this. And one of the things you just find when you're around kids, is how interested, especially when they're hunting for Easter eggs, how fair is a really big deal. Like, just how everything has to be fair as far as when it comes to who found their Easter egg basket first,

how many people who pound has many eggs first. Sometimes my parents will do this thing where they put some money in a plastic Easter egg and you have to find that. And like, what's fair? Like, the whole idea is, especially if you've got a bunch of kids, you want to be as fair as possible. Because at the end of the day, there's this thing that we all have,

and it's not bad. It's that thing of, like, I want to get what I deserve. And I've been reflecting on that notion of fairness is the one thing, but that sense of like, I want to get what I deserve. And I think we all want that in some ways. We have a sense of what we deserve and I want to get that thing I deserve. And I was thinking about this, not just because of Easter, but going back even a couple of a couple weeks is, I think I'm about to mention this before.

We were on a pilgrimage to Poland, oh, maybe a month or a month and a half ago now. And one of the places, one of the many places we went to was Auschwitz. and so the death camp. Now, 25 years ago, I had gone to Dachau in Germany. And I remember that at the time they said, you know, Dachau is different. Dachau is a true concentration camp where Auschwitz, if you ever go there in Poland, Auschwitz was a true death camp. In fact, the number of Jews and Polish people and gypsies, Catholics,

all these different people who were killed at Auschwitz is something around two and a half million people who were gassed and then incinerated. In fact, not only those people who were gassed and incinerated, If we walked through this place, the guide who was telling us all about the situation there and the living situations was, they say, yeah, some people were immediately. They were just brought to the gas chamber and then executed or shot and then incinerated. But some people, they simply worked and starved to death, maybe half a million to a million other people who weren't gassed.

But they were just worked and starved to death. So the average life expectancy of someone at Auschwitz was three months. It was a true death camp. But even in this death camp, this guide, she showed us a barracks for children. And that was, the whole place was horrifying. The whole place was so dark and difficult to walk through. But this barracks for children, she pointed out how each bunk, they sleep up to seven children. And there are three levels of bunks.

And she said, you know, you really wanted to be on the top bunk. And I was just thinking why. And she said, because, you know, little kids get diarrhea. Little kids get sick in the middle of the night throwing up, and that just leaks through the slats and that top bunk, through the second bunk, to the bottom bunk. And I just remember thinking, out of all of the atrocities, all the horror that was Auschwitz, like that, that's one that just struck me. Interestingly enough, the man who was in charge of Auschwitz, his name was Rudolf Hess. And Rudolph Hess, you know, he was baptized as a Catholic. He was raised as a Catholic.

In fact, his father wanted him to be a priest. And when his dad died, he just, Rudolph, he was being pushed into that, so he just abandoned that and abandoned the church. And, yeah, he essentially started working for the Nazi party and became the person who was a commandant of Auschwitz. And I don't know if he was ideologically driven. I don't know if he really had a hatred of the Jews and a desire to exterminate them, but he was given a task and he wanted to be very good at his task.

And so he was trying to be as efficient as possible, killing, I think, up at some point, thousands and thousands a day, trying to find a way to maximize the incineration to get rid of all these bodies. After the war, he even tried to kill himself, fleeing from the authorities, but they stopped him from killing himself and put him on trial. You have to ask the question. What did Rudolph Hess, this man who was responsible? If anyone was responsible for the three million people, three and a half million people who

murdered at Auschwitz. I mean, imagine, just pause on that for that. Three and a half million people. We know that one person's death is a tragedy, but three and a half million people, the person responsible will give a question is, what did he deserve? You know, they just recently came out with a movie called Zone of Interest. It was about his life, about his family's life. On the tour, they showed us the cottage right outside the walls. Right outside the barbed wire fence was this cottage where Rudolph has his wife and their five kids lived, and they lived in this separated. I mean, they could probably hear the screams of the prisoners and people who are dying, but they just kind of live their own life. What did that man deserve? I think we'd all

agree that he would deserve justice. You know, because that's a good thing, right? Justice is a real thing. Justice is a virtue, right? Justice is giving someone what they're owed, like giving someone their due. And we all want justice. And that, again, that's good. In fact, we all want what? We all want the reality that our decisions have consequences, right? That if you're going to choose this, then there's a consequence here. We all like the idea, the truth, that the reality, that our choices should have consequences. In fact, one of the first revelations of God is that God's goodness is that he is just. Part of God's goodness is that he is just in that sense of the, he lets us have what we've chosen.

That he, part of God's justice is that he gives us what we deserve. Now, pause in this for one second because it's important to understand that that God's justice is not arbitrary, it's also not obvious and it's not necessarily always immediate. What I mean by that is this. This is very important for us to understand that God's justice is not arbitrary, it's intrinsic. So we all know the difference between arbitrary justice and intrinsic justice. Arbitrary justice is you broke your curfew and so your parents say, okay, from now on you're going to wash the dishes and rake the leaves. So it's kind of like just assigned a punishment to this infraction that you broke, this law that you broke, rule

that you broke. That's an arbitrary consequence. That's an arbitrary judgment, arbitrary justice. Now, intrinsic justice is, hey, don't touch that hot stove. You touch the hot stove and your hands burned. So the intrinsic justice is the consequence is directly and immediately, intrinsically, you might say, related to the crime, essentially. God's justice is always intrinsic justice. It's never arbitrary justice. That's very important for us to understand. We get what we've chosen. But it's also, God's justice is not always obvious. God's justice is not always immediate. In fact, Psalm 73 says it like this.

The Psalmist is looking at the people who are wicked. And he says, they have no struggles. Their bodies are sound and sleek. He says, they're not troubled like others. They're not afflicted like other men. That's one of the realities that we have to experience. One of the realities we experience is that, okay, yeah, God's justice is intrinsic, it's not arbitrary,

but it's also not obvious and is also not immediate. Because, why? Because good things happen to bad people and sometimes bad things happen to good people. And that can lead to a distrable. trust because not only sometimes are the consequences slow and coming for those who do wrong, but also we can be tempted to think sometimes, right, if we know that God's justice, that there's consequences to our choices, that all bad things that come our way are the result

of our sins. Sometimes we think that. I remember hearing the story recently of a young woman when she was 15, her name's Maureen. When she was 15, Maureen had this disease called lymphedema. And her faith was already weak as a 15-year-old, and this diagnosis made her faith even weaker. At one point, she actually, in her teens, had to have one of her legs amputated. And she said, I mean, again, this is the wound that we all experienced. She said that I thought I was being punished for something I had done

or for something that I would possibly do in the future. And how many times is that us? How many times when something bad is happening to us, we think, okay, this is some kind of punishment that I've done, or this has to do with something I might do in the future. We can think like this because out of the, all of our wounds, all the wounds that we have in our lives, the wound of distrust is probably the most powerful. In fact, it goes all the way back to the beginning. In Genesis 1 and 2,

God makes us in right relationship with Him. But then in Genesis chapter 3, when we choose evil, when we choose sin, something happens to us. Not only, obviously, do we have a break in a relationship with God and with each other and with ourselves, but the Catechism says it like this. It says, with our parents, our first parents' first sin, trust died. Trust in God died in the human. human heart. Out of all the wounds that we have, the wound of distrust is probably the most powerful, but also realize the gospel is this. The gospel is God coming to heal that wound. Now, there are many wounds that Jesus didn't heal and there are many wounds that God doesn't heal. But the wound he wants to always heal is this wound of distrust. I mean, to realize that the whole

story of the gospel is to heal this wound, the incarnation, right? Christmas. God becomes one of us. Why? For you? To win your trust. That God enters into poverty voluntarily. Why? For you to win your trust. God allows himself to be rejected for you to win your trust. He allows himself to be betrayed for you and for me to win our trust. Last week, we commemorated the passion, the cross. Why did Jesus do that?

He did it for you to win your trust. Why did he rise from the dead? To heal this wound of distrust. And even today's gospel, this is so amazing what happens. Jesus, in the resurrection, he comes to the disciples and he breathes on them and he says, receive the Holy Spirit, those whose sins you forgive are forgiven. Now, this is the most amazing thing. Jesus gives the power to forgive sins to his apostles.

That what Jesus made possible on Calvary, right, the forgiveness of our sins, is made actual by the Holy Spirit through the church. Say that again. What Jesus made possible on Calvary, that mercy is now possible, the Holy Spirit makes actual through the church, to the work of the church. Why? For you to heal that wound of distrust. And that's why this actual feast, the second Sunday after Easter,

is called Divine Mercy Sunday. Why? Because we need to do what St. Faustina said, Jesus told her. So in the 1930s, in Poland, there was this young nun. And we realized that darkness had come over our world. Now, darkness is always present. We recognize that the darkness of the 20th century is some of the deepest darkness that has ever existed on the planet.

And so here's Jesus who appears to this young nun in Poland, sister Vostina Kualska. And one of the things he said is he said, I need you to do this. I need you to proclaim that mercy is the greatest attribute of God. That mercy is God's greatest attribute. Now think about this for a second. What is God? God is love.

But mercy is the highest form of God. love. Mercy is the greatest form of love. Why? Because what is mercy? Mercy is the love of God that we need the most. But it's also the love of God that we deserve the least. That mercy is hope of the hopeless. Mercy is the confidence of the guilty. Mercy, in fact, you say like this, mercy is the only love we actually have to qualify for. Because the only, the prerequisite for mercy is that you need mercy. The prerequisite for mercy is that you've failed. The prerequisite for mercy is that you've sin. Again, the prerequisite for mercy is that you need mercy. And because of what Jesus has done, this is the great news. Because of what Jesus has done, we get to choose.

Because of what Jesus has done, we get what we choose. I mean, this is the choice. The choice is the consequence I deserve or the love I need. This is the choice every one of us is given. because of what Jesus has done, I either choose the justice I deserve or the mercy I need. Remember, this is intrinsic, right? This is intrinsic consequences. So if I choose not God, I get not God.

And if I choose God, I get God. Because what Jesus has done, you can actually choose God and get God. If I choose hell, I'll get hell. Because of what Jesus has done, if you want heaven and you choose heaven, you get heaven. Because of Jesus, we get to choose. So what will he choose? Will I choose the justice I deserve or will I choose the mercy that I need?

And again, once again, this has always been the gospel. This has always been the good news. But mercy is difficult. Because why? Because in order to choose mercy, I need to trust. And what's the greatest wound in our heart? The greatest wound in our heart is distrust. trust, especially when the darkness is at its worst.

I think that's probably the reason why Jesus appeared in 1930s to this nun, St. Faustina. Because he did. He said, yes, there is such a thing as divine justice. And that's a good thing. But there's also something that this world had forgotten, and that is divine mercy. In fact, Jesus said that one of the greatest wounds is that he experienced was that his people, that he loved, the people that he died for, people he suffered for, they did not trust his mercy. In fact, here's the, so what happened was this. He gave St. Paulistina and then the church

these three gifts. The first is the message, the second is the image and the third is the chaplet. So the message of divine mercies like this. Jesus said, to Faustina, he said, all grace flows from mercy and the last hour abounds with mercy for us. Let no one doubt concerning the goodness of God, even if a person's sins were as dark as night, God's mercy is stronger than our misery. One thing alone is necessary, that the sinner set ajar the door of his heart, be it ever so little to let an array of God's merciful grace, and then God will do the rest. Because that's how it happens, right? We just simply open our hearts even a little bit, and God will do the rest.

He goes on to say, the greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to my mercy. This is the message of divine mercy. The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to my mercy. My mercy is confirmed in every work of my hands, and he who trust in my mercy will not perish. This is the message of divine mercy. Now, the second thing that Jesus gave through Faustina to the world is the image of divine mercy that's in front of the altar today. But this image that Jesus has promised that anyone who venerates this image or honors this image

will again, once again, this image of God's mercy, right? The rays of blue and of red, symbolizing baptism and symbolizing the Eucharist, coming from his heart. If you venerate this image, you'll have his mercy. But there's also this prayer called the chaplet of divine mercy. So at one point, Faustina, she was given a vision. She was given a vision of God's wrath. She was given a vision of divine justice. And she was just distraught by this.

And so kind of spontaneously, she just prayed. She said, Eternal Father, I offer you the body and blood, soul and divinity of your dearly beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins. And she said, at those words, the wrath of God stopped. And later on, Jesus confirmed those words, but he added at the end, Atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. In fact, how this developed is these words, Eternal Father,

I offer you the body and blood, soul and divinity of your dearly beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and atonement for our sins, and those of the whole world. And then on a rosary beads, you'd pray those 10, usually Hail Mary's, you'd say the words, for the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. So this prayer prayed on rosary beads became the chaplet of divine mercy. And with that, there were some promises

that Jesus, again, gave to St. Faustina. There's 14 promises, but here's just four, four quick promises that are associated with praying the chaplet of divine mercy. The first one is, the soul that says this chaplet will be embraced by my mercy during their lifetime and especially at the hour of their death. His second promise, when hardened sinners say it, I will fill their souls with peace and the hour of death will be a happy one.

Third promise is when they say this chaplet in the presence of the dying, so means not even them, but you're saying in the presence of someone who's dying, I will stand between my father and the dying person, not as a just judge, but as a merciful savior. And the fourth one I just want to share today is a priest who recommend it to sinners as their last hope of, We'll recommend this to sinners as their last hope of salvation. And I'm your priest recommending the chaplain of my mercy as the last hope of salvation. It goes on to say, even if there were a sinner most hardened, if you were to recite this chaplain only once,

he would receive grace from my infinite mercy. And I desire to grant unimaginable graces to those souls who trust in my mercy. Why? Pause on this. Why did Jesus want this chaplain prayed? Why would this prayer be so powerful? That's one of the questions that I ask. And I would say this.

Well, I'll ask another question. What is the single greatest act of mercy? In the history of the world, what is the single greatest act of love? We know it's the cross. That Jesus poured himself out to his father out of love for humanity, to glorify his father and to save us.

And we also know that we preach We represent that sacrifice, that once for all sacrifice. At every mass, that's what we're participating in, right? At every mass, we are representing that one sacrifice once for all to the Father. Because there's nothing like the Mass. Right? The Mass is the source and summit of the Christian life. The mass is the sacrifice.

What we do at the altar here, the mass is the sacrifice of Calvary. It is a source of all grace. And so the chaplet, what the chaplet does is the chaplet extends the greatest act of mercy out into the world. The greatest act of mercy is Calvary, right? and we represent Calvary at every Mass. What the chaplet does is allows us to participate in and apply what God has done

to this situation or to this person or to this circumstance in an unparalleled way. Listen to the words. Eternal Father, I offer you the body and blood, soul and divinity of your dearly beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's what happens at every Mass. We're offering the sacrifice of the son to the Father in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. See, this is one of the greatest gifts we can do that when we go to the Mass, we participate. We're engaged in the sacrifice of Jesus to the Father that saved the world. You can't get to Mass to be able to pray the chaplain

extends the graces, the mystery, the power of the mass, the power of mercy out into the world. That's one of the reasons why Jesus would say, yes, in the presence of the dying, pray this prayer. Why? Because this extends. of, say it again, extends and applies the graces of Calvary and the graces of the mass to even those hard and sinner. Now, keep this in mind. Saying this prayer, it's not a mantra, it's not magic, it is mercy. That this whole thing is not an incantation. Praying this prayer is the

incarnation. It's the passion. It's the death. It's the resurrection of Jesus. It's a relationship with him. That's one of the reasons why Jesus, when he said this to Faustina, he said, it's not just about the devotion, it's about what's behind the devotion. It's about living a life of trust and mercy. But living a life of trust and mercy, in fact, he said it like this, Jesus said this to Faustina. He said, the graces of my mercy are drawn by one vessel and one vessel only, and that is trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive. So we have to have this trust. In fact, we have to not only have this trust, we have to be willing to live trust. So there's a great book about consecration to divine mercy by Father Michael

Gaetly. And I think it's called the way of merciful love. And our 33 days of merciful love, Father Michael Gaetly, he was troubled by this. He was like, how do I live trust? Like, if the greatest wound in our hearts is the wound of distrust, how do I live trust? And he's very perplexed by this, but he talked to someone that he, a mentor of his. And the mentor was made it very simple. He said, well, the way you live trust is by praise and thanksgiving. That's it. To praise God and thank God in all things, that's living trust. I mean, think about this in your life and my life. How do I know if I'm growing in trust? Well, okay, here's a situation where you have a lot of uncertainty. Here's a situation where there's some difficulty. Here's a situation

where you have no idea how things are going to turn out. But I trust you, God. Well, how? I'm I'm going to praise you now. I'm going to thank you now. The way to live trust is to praise God and thank him now. I'd say another way to live trust is through the sacrament of confession. We know that the sacrament of confession is a sacrament of mercy, but we know this. It's a sacrament of trust. Is we come before God at our worst and we present our hearts as they are at their worst and we're saying, God, I even trust you even at my worst. So we realize, right, to live this, to live mercy is not, again, to pray the chaplet, to live this power of God's divine mercy, to choose mercy, it is not just about a mantra, it is not magic, it is mercy,

it is mercy, it's not an incantation, it is the incarnation, it's living trust and it's also living mercy. Jesus said, I demand from you, if you're going to receive my mercy, I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of of your love for me. You are to show your mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from it. And I'm asking you, I'm giving you three ways of exercising mercy. First by deed, second by word and third by prayer.

First by deed, second by word and third by prayer. Question, how can we live not only trust, praise and Thanksgiving, quoting confession. How do we live mercy? or we do it by giving mercy to those who need it. We live it by speaking mercy to those who need to hear it. We do it by praying the chaplain of divine mercy. By prayer. That's the invitation this week is to pray the chaplain of divine mercy

and to realize that if I pray the chaplain of divine mercy for myself, I'm not going to get what I deserve. And if I pray the chaplain of divine mercy for someone else, The truth is they might not get what they deserve either. This is the last thing. Rudolph Hess mentioned him at the beginning of this. As I said, he was baptized Catholic, had his First Holy Communion as a whatever, second grader probably.

Filled away from the church became this person that would be unrecognizable. To us, unrecognizable, maybe even to the Lord, I don't know. As I said, when he was on the stand and his, trial, he seemed like he didn't care. He seemed completely unmoved by the accusations against him. He seemed completely unmoved by the evil that he had done and the lives that he had completely ruined. As I said, he tried to at one point commit suicide. He was put into prison and he did have one fear. The fear wasn't death. His fear was that when he got to prison, people would treat him the way he treated the prisoners in Auschwitz. Something else happened.

When he got into prison, people didn't just treat him well. People treated him with kindness. You think, why? Why would they treat him with kindness? The reality is because they knew mercy. And that mercy did something. That mercy broke through Rudolf Hess's life in a way that justice couldn't. The mercy broke through Rudolf Hess's heart

in a way that punishment couldn't, not even execution could. And at one point, God's grace moved in his heart in such a way that he asked him. for a priest. You know, crazy enough that they couldn't find a priest. They couldn't find a priest who was willing to come to this man's cell and hear his confession because that's what he wanted to go.

He wanted to go to confession. He couldn't find a priest because imagine these priests, a lot of them, had their brothers killed by this man. They had their families killed by this man. They had countless Catholics as well as obviously millions of Jews killed by this man. So some priests who were asked didn't go. There was one priest who was a Jesuit, one priest who did actually show up. He and Rudolph Hess had had an encounter before when he was in the commandant of Auschwitz.

At one point, this Jesuit priest had broken into Auschwitz to try to serve his Jesuit brothers. And for whatever reason, it's completely unknown. It's the mystery of God's providence that when that priest was brought before, commandant Hess, Rudolph Hess said, fine, you can leave. I'm not going to keep you here. I'm setting you free. That priest heard that Rudolph Hess wanted to go to confession. So that priest went to his cell. And apparently we don't know what they said, obviously, because confession is sealed.

But it took ours. At the end of that confession, I imagine that priest extended his hand over Rudolf Hess's his head. And he said, by the ministry of the church, I absolve you of all of your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The next day, that priest came back this time with the Eucharist, with Jesus and Holy Communion. and the reports are that Rudolf Hess knelt down and was weeping as he received the body and blood of our Lord for the first time in a lifetime and for the last time in his lifetime. And Rudolf Hess didn't get what he deserved.

And that might be something that really upsets us. In fact, that might be something that's too much for us to accept. And maybe you're right. Maybe there should be a limit to mercy. Maybe God's mercy, maybe his love should run out at some point. Maybe that's fair. Maybe that would be fair. But the mystery of mercy is that it's scandalous.

The mystery of mercy is that when we think it could run out, we're underestimating the depth of the passion of Jesus. When we think that there should be a limit to God's mercy, we think that what Jesus did on Calvary is shallower than it actually is. Then we think that there should be a limit. Then, no, no, no. Some people should just get what they deserve. we don't realize that what Jesus did on the cross,

he bore the weight of every sin, every sin that everyone could have possibly committed so that at the end of our lives, and even in the midst of our lives, he bore the weight of every sin so that you and I could have a choice. That choice will be, what do I want? Do I want the justice I deserve? Or do I want the mercy that I need? Thank you.