Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 04/11/21 Scar Stories

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

Homily from the Sunday of Divine Mercy. Every scar has a story. Virtually everyone has scars. And every scar has a story. Scars are reminders of our past...they are reminders that won’t go away. And Jesus has kept His wounds in order to help us to never forget His story. Mass Readings from April 11, 2021: Acts 4:32-35 1 John 5:1-6Colossians 3:1-4 John 20:19-31

So years ago, I came across this talk by a nun named Sister Gaudia, and Sister Gaudia is a Polish nun who goes all over the place and talks about Divine Mercy. But at this point, she was telling stories about Auschwitz and part of the history of Poland. She's talking specifically about the commandant of Auschwitz. His name was Rudolf Hess. And Rudolph Hess, for three years, he oversaw and he orchestrated the extermination of over 2.5 million people. 2.5 million people, Jews, Poles, Catholics. In fact, at Auschwitz, he presided over the extermination of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross,

who had formerly been a Jewish woman, then an atheist, then she became a Catholic nun. He presided over the extermination, the martyrdom of St. Maximilian Colby. In fact, at Auschwitz, there was an entire barracks just for Catholic priests that were exterminated there. He oversaw that. He also, while he was running Auschwitz, over half a million people, died because of starvation or because of disease. In fact, after Rudolf Hess's time was up at Auschwitz, a year later he came back to make sure to orchestrate and to oversee the extermination of over 400,000

Jews from Hungary. You think about Rudolf Hess, the commandant Rudolf Hess, and just the wound he inflicted wounds on Poland and on the Polish people that will never go away. He inflicted wounds and the previous part of a movement that inflicted wounds on Europe that will never go away. That he inflicted wounds on people close to him that will never go. He inflicted wounds on himself that will never go away. Because they're the kind of wounds that don't go away. They're the kind of wounds that won't go away because they are the kind of wounds that can't go away. His choices, his life has left scars on humanity.

His life has left scars on humanity. Now, I just want to talk about scars for a second. We're going to come up for a breath quick. well come back to World War II. Don't worry. Don't be too afraid about this. But I was thinking about we put on a bunch of high school confirmation retreats without the course of the year. You're like, wow, father, leap, concentration camp, high school retreat. It all makes sense in the end. We put on these retreats and a lot of these high school students, they don't want to be there. Some of the people helping don't want to be there. Sometimes I don't want, I always want to be there.

But one of the things we have to do is you have to do small groups. And small groups are one of the bains of my existence. I know what, it's awkward. They're awful. And so one of the things you have to do is you have to have some kind of icebreaker. If you've ever been a part of a small group, you know. Here comes the icebreaker question. And there are some good icebreaker questions out there. Some of the favorites, you know, if you could be any Disney princess, which Disney princess would you be? That's a great. If you could have any superpower in the world, which superpower would you have? If you could have any condiment come out of your belly button, which condiment would you have come out of your belly button? Those are all really

highbrow, highbrow. But one of the best icebreaker questions we've ever asked is the question we asked before Mass. Like, what's your favorite scar story? Now, the guys love it. I don't know, sometimes the ladies love it as well. But what's your favorite story? Because we realize this. Every scar has a story. Every one. And sometimes the stories are silly. Like, I have a scar on the back of my hand that I got when I was 17 years old. I was in a hallway, just roughhousing with a friend. And I, as I was weird tussling, and I brushed my hand against a light switch. Now, this wasn't one of those lethal light switches made out of daggers. It was just a normal, like rounded edges on a light switch, and it didn't even like gush blood. It just kind of

blood raised to the surface. I didn't even need a band-aid, and I've had a scar there for 30 years. Just ridiculous. Some scars are silly. They have a silly story. Some scar stories are cool. Like I was listening to a Joe Rogan podcast where he was interviewing this young woman who was a wildlife ranger in Alaska, and she was in the middle of the wilderness, and she got attacked by a grizzly bear. This grizzly bear, like, bit her head. Her head, a whole head was inside this grizzly bear's mouth, she has these scars on the side of her head, in her ear, on the back. Now, I say this is a cool star story, because I didn't live it. I imagine she would say this is a scar story of one of the worst days of my life. Because that's also what the scars are,

right? So many scars are exactly that. They are a reminder of the worst day of my life. Sometimes our scars are reminders of the moment when my whole life changed. Sometimes our scars are the mark, the reminder of the defining battle of your life. This scar, this is where they took out the cancer. This scar, this is where I was burned so bad they thought I was going to die. This scar is from where they had to put in all those plates, had to put in all those pins. And even so many people, you know, I'm... I know sometimes those scars are the scars that, yeah, the story behind this one is I did this to myself.

So many people I talked to in the course of... Life is just, I gave myself this scar. Because I was feeling such invisible and interior pain that I gave myself an outward injury. Again, so whether or not, whether or not this is this good story or a brave story or a tragic story, all of the scars, every one of our scars have one thing in common, and that is that every one of our scars has a story. And the scar, the scar is what? The scar is a reminder of the story.

and it's a reminder that won't go away. Whether we like the story or don't like the story this last summer, my niece Catherine, she's in third grade right now. She got two scars over the course of the summer, and one, she was messing around with one of her sisters on a soccer goal, and she was hanging on it, and it just tipped over and came right down on her forehead and get this huge scar, and she was, I asked her about it, and she made a video, no, sorry,

she had multiple videos telling me the story of the scar. It wasn't even a story. It was the saga of the story. It was the saga of the scar, how she got this and it was like, you fell down here, there's really bad, and all these stitches, and Auntie Amy, my sister, who's the doctor, like put in stitches, and then she actually followed the trail of blood. Like, Uncle Father Mike, you can see the first blood there and first blood there? And my dad said, wow, Catherine, you're really beating?

I'm like, really am I dad? I'm like, wow, it was awesome. I mean, to hear the story was awesome. But then she also cut her hand opening a box with a knife. And it was interesting because as much as she wanted to tell me, the saga of this scar from the goalie, from the goal post. She did not want to tell the story of having cut her hand with a knife because it was one of those situations where she knew she should have been cutting away from her,

but she cut towards herself, and that's how she cut it. And she was embarrassed because she was like, I knew better than this. And not only did she not want to show the scar, she didn't want to even share the story. She's like, basically you could see her say, like, no, I knew better. I shouldn't have done this. and so I have to hide this one. This is one of the scars that I have to hide. This is one of the stories that I can't tell.

Because that's one of the things, right? Sometimes we have scars we don't want to show. Sometimes we have stories that we definitely do not want to tell. And I want to highlight this because in the gospel today, there's a line. And it's one of these lines that is so small, it's so short, it's easy to just breeze right past. And the line says this, that when Jesus, he's resurrected, and he comes to his disciples, and it says,

he said, peace be with you. and when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. And when he said this, he showed them his hands and his side, that when he saw his disciples, the first thing he does as he shows them his scars. The first thing he does is he shows them his wounds. So remember this about the crucifixion, because we spent this whole last Lent talking about the crucifixion

and this whole last holy week reflecting and praying about the crucifixion, that the point of the crucifixion was not merely death, because Romans could do that anyway. The point of the crucifixion was humiliation. The point of the crucifixion is to get this person so beaten and so broken and stripped naked and exposed and nailed to a couple pieces of wood so that they are completely helpless, so that they are completely exposed, so that they are completely humiliated. In Romans, often kept bodies on the cross for days, for weeks, as a reminder.

It's something, a reminder of a day that you'd rather forget, because this is a humiliation. This is something you would rather forget. This is a wound. This is a scar you would rather not be reminded of. Rather forget. So Rudolph Hess, at one point, you know, when he was commandant of Auschwitz, the Gashapa went into Krakow and they invaded the Jesuit School of Studies. Basically took everybody. They kidnapped everybody. All the seminarians, all the priests, everyone who was part of this community, they rounded them all up and brought them into Auschwitz. The only person they didn't bring to Auschwitz was the superior of the whole community because he just wasn't there that day. When he got back to the formation house, he discovered that

all of his brothers were in Auschwitz. He was convicted. He said, I can't leave my brothers alone. So actually he broke, he snuck into Auschwitz. I don't know if anyone else has done that. He snuck into Auschwitz and he was caught pretty quickly. And when the soldiers caught him, they brought him to Rudolf Hess. And everyone knew exactly what Rudolph Hess is going to do. Here's a man who's overseen the murder of millions of people. Of course, he's going to kill this priest. But Rudolf Hess met this priest, and for whatever reason, he said, you can leave, just don't come back.

At the end of the war, Rudolph Hess was arrested, obviously. And he was tried, and he was convicted of crimes against humanity, and he was sentenced to death and agallows that was set up in Auschwitz. And even though he knew he was going to die, what he was most afraid of was being in prison because the guards in his prison were going to be, they're the husbands of women that he killed. They are the fathers of children that he killed.

They are the sons of parents that he killed. His big terror was, I'm going to go to this prison. And they were going to torture me every day until they finally kill me in the place where I killed so many. And he just looked, he said, all I've done, everything I've done, for all these people against all these,

these people, everyone remembers. No one has forgotten, and he just, he hated the reminder. Because if you have that kind of scar that tells that story, that scar is a permanent reminder, it's a reminder that won't go away. Let's go back to the apostles. Here's Jesus. And what does he do? He says, peace in the face of their failure. He says forgiveness in the sight of their sin. And what does he do? He shows them his hands and his side. And you realize that Jesus kept them. You know, all the other wounds of Jesus on his body, the lashes from the scourging, the beatings they received, those were all healed. But the wounds in his hands and his feet and his sides, he kept them.

I don't know if he ever reflected on this. Thomas, right, doubting Thomas. You ever just stop and just, that when Thomas is not there, which is a total bummer, like, imagine Thomas, he's out getting groceries, you know. He comes back, Thomas, we've seen the Lord. He's like, oh, man, I miss everything. But what does Thomas say? He says, unless I see the nail marks and put my finger in the nail marks,

put my hand into the wound in his side, I won't believe, which I imagine Matthew's over there going, like, Thomas, you were always so weird. That's disgusting. It's such a strange thing to say, but it's even stranger that he knew. Like, here's the crazy thing. Thomas knew that Jesus still had wounds. Thomas knew that Jesus kept his scars. Why? He would have only known that if the other

apostles had told him. Imagine that moment when they said, Thomas, we saw the Lord, and guess what? those wound in his hands, the wound in his side, the wounds in his feet, he has them still. Like he kept them. That the scars of his humiliation, that's the story of our hope. Because that's the reality. The scars, the marks of his humiliation, the reminder of his humiliation is the story of our hope. Because we know our scars, and therefore we know our story.

Do we know his scars? So that we can know his story. Because his wounds, his scars, are a reminder that won't go away. And what are they reminding us of? They're reminding us of his unending love. They're reminding us of his mercy. It's almost no wonder that in this exact moment, when Jesus shows the wounds,

is the exact same moment that Jesus gives priests the ability to forgive sins. I don't know if you caught that. In the exact same moment, Jesus shows these wounds, this reminder that won't go away, is the exact moment that Jesus breathes on the apostles and says, receive the Holy Spirit, those whose sins you forgive are forgiven, those who since you retain are retained.

And he gave us the sacrament of confession in the very moment where he held up the reminder of mercy. Because what is mercy? Mercy is the love that we don't deserve. Mercy is the love we don't deserve. Mercy is given most at the moment

when we deserve it the least. It's one of the reasons why today is the Feast of Divine Mercy. I don't know about another Polish nun her name is St. Faustina Kowalska. At one point Jesus came to her with this message of mercy. And I would say, like someone had told me earlier this week,

it's the most powerful, the most important devotion of our time. That everyone in this church, everyone in the world, I don't often say this about devotions because they're kind of pick them as you choose. If you like them, go ahead and do them. I would say everyone in this church, everyone in this world, we have to have a devotion to divine mercy. Why? Because we live in a time that's unprecedented

in a time that has forgotten sin. We live in a time, therefore, because it's forgotten sin, it's neglected mercy. Like, we don't understand why Jesus has kept his wounds. Because his scars are a reminder that won't go away. And they remind us of the ugliness of sin. And they remind us of the power of his mercy. His scars remind us of the ugliness of sin. And his scars remind us of the power of his mercy.

In fact, that mercy is so powerful that sometimes we might even actually choose to resent it. Because our mercy has a limit. I know my love has a limit. The God's love does not. When Rudolf Hess was awaiting his execution, terrified of the prison guards, knowing that he is going to be tortured by men whose families he tortured, he was shocked to discover that every one of those guards treated him with kindness.

These men whose lives he destroyed treated him with kindness. and it did something to his heart. And Rudolf Hess said, before I die, I need to go to confession. But the problem is, when you're responsible for killing all the priests in Poland, it becomes really difficult to find a priest in Poland. Not only that, this is so close after he did all these things that the priests were alive, you can understand.

Maybe they didn't want to go to Rudolf Hess. Maybe they didn't want to give him the mercy of God. They couldn't find a priest. But Rudolf Hess remembered the name of one priest, the Jesuit priest, that he had spared in his time at Auschwitz. He remembered his name, and he told the name to the guards, and the guards went and found him. They found him in a place called the Shrine of Divine Mercy.

They told this priest about Rudolf Hess wanting to go to confession, so he went. He went into his cell, and the story is that he went into his cell, and the confession went on and on and on, and on. At the end of it, the priest raised his hand and said, I absolve you of all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And the next day, the priest came back,

and he came back with Holy Communion. And he gave this monster, he gave this murderer, he gave this not even half a human being, Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. And one of the guards who was in the room with him when he received communion said, that watching him received communion was like watching a young boy full of the Holy Spirit

who is completely innocent receiving Jesus. Now, we might hear this and might say, oh, that's nice. We might hear it and say, not fair. We might hear this, because why? Because our mercy has a limit. Our love has a minute. We might look at this and say, a man like that doesn't deserve that,

and you would actually be right. A man like that does not deserve to be loved like that. That's true. And neither do I. And neither do you. But mercy is the love we don't deserve. and mercy is given the most when we deserve it the least, but when we need it the most. And this is the last thing.

Jesus shows us his wounds so that we're not afraid to show him ours. Jesus shows us those scars, so we're not afraid to show him ours. Because there are wounds that won't go away in our lives. There are scars that stay. And your scars tell a story. and Jesus Christ's scars tell a story. And they say something that won't be forgotten. They say something actually that can't be forgotten.

That even in our darkest day, even with our worst wounds, even in our saddest scars, that every single one of them have because of the unending love of God. Every one of them, every one of your scars, every one of your wounds, because of his unending mercy, they have a place in his and we place our scars in his his his story has the power to change our story