Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 05/16/21 You Will Be Martyrs

Episode Date: May 17, 2021

Homily from the Mass of the Ascension of the Lord. Nice is different than good. Jesus doesn't call us to simply be "nice people." Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit so that we can be more than we are now...so that we can do more than we can do now. Jesus sends His Holy Spirit so that we can have the strength to be the kind of people who can bear witness to Him and His love in this world. He gives His Spirit so that people can be saved and God can be glorified. Mass Readings from May 16, 2021: Acts 1:1-11 Psalms 47:2-3, 6-9Ephesians 1:17-23 Mark 16:15-20

So back in high school, I was introduced to a musical and not the high school musical. That came much later. Into the Woods was this, like, it was the first time I remember the first time I ever listened to the soundtrack, ever watched the musical Into the Woods was in high school. And it just blew me away because I was just, it was fun. There were good songs. It was super creative. Like the way they would weave the different singers like singing the same lines, the way

they weave these stories together. Basically, it's retelling of all these different fairy tales that we're familiar with. And it was the first time I ever came across the whole notion of, okay, what happens after? Like, what happens after Prince Charming rescues Cinderella or his brother rescues Rapunzel? What happens after Jack cuts down the beanstalk? What happens? Basically, the question, what happens after happily ever after? And I'd never seen that before.

No, of course, people now, kids nowadays, what people nowadays, they have grown up with this. You grew up with Shrek and you're like, oh, yeah, that's kind of old hat. But for me, I had never, ever seen it before. And I thought it was so cool. It was this whole new insight from me, but another thing that was a massive insight from that musical was this one line that they sing a couple times during the course of the story. And the line is, nice is different than good. Because we have these characters, right?

You have Prince Charming, who's incredibly charming, who's incredibly nice. We have other characters who are just like this, that when we see them in the story, they're very nice. But that didn't mean the same thing as good. So that refrain, nice is different than good. And I kept being reminded of that statement, which I think is a true statement, as I was preparing for reading the readings for this Sunday,

Ascension Sunday, and for next Sunday, Pentecost Sunday. Because that's next week. You know, we have Acts chapter 1 as a first reading today. And here is Jesus, and he's risen from the dead. He spent the last 40 days with his disciples teaching them and just opening their minds to all the scriptures and everything about him and just like confirming so many things in them.

So they know who he is. So they know that Jesus is the Savior. They know he is the Messiah. They know that he is the son of God. They know who he is. And so as Jesus leads them out to Bethany, you can see everything. If you ever go there, you can see over all Jerusalem.

You can see that's the place where Jesus was crucified. That's where he was risen from the dead. That's where the last supper was, where he gave us the Euchar. And they asked Jesus this question, we know who you are. Lord, you are the Lord. Like, you're the King of King.

You're the Prince of Peace. You're the Messiah. So, are you at this point going to restore the kingdom? Because you're the one who does that. Like, we know who you are. You're the one who restores the kingdom. So now are you going to restore the kingdom? And Jesus gives this really interesting answer

because at first half of the answer, he says, well, it's not for you to know the time or the seasons. But then he says, basically, no, you are. That they ask him, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And he says, basically, essentially, no, you are. He says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and then you will be my witnesses here in the city of Jerusalem throughout Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth.

Then it blows me away. That Jesus says, in response to this question, are you going to restore the kingdom? He says, no, I'm going to let you do that. With my power, right, the power of the Holy Spirit, the dynamite power of the Holy Spirit, but you will be my witnesses. Now, the interesting thing is that word witness in Greek is the word Martis, or Martus. It's the word we get the word martyr. And Jesus is saying, you will be my martyrs.

You know, a few weeks ago we pointed out that you can witness that you can be someone who sees the miracle and yet not be a witness. And that's the same word now. Jesus uses. He says, you will be my martyrs. I came across an essay recently that was the essay on the difference between a victim and a martyr. And I thought it was really fascinating because they noted that a martyr is not usually glorified, not usually exalted, lifted up, or praised because of the story.

the amount of suffering they went through. It's not they went through so much agony that that's the reason what we keep referring to when we talk about a martyr. In fact, the thing we keep looking to when we look to the martyrs is that they pointed to something else. We don't emphasize necessarily what they died from,

the fact that what they died for. In fact, that's what this author of this essay pointed out. He said that when we talk about a victim, we know what they died from. We talk about a martyr, we talk about what they died for. So a victim, they're a victim of a car crash. You know, they died from cancer. They were killed by a brutal regime.

That's what they died from. But a martyr, we talk about what they died for. They died for the Eucharist. They died for their fellow man. They died for liberty. They died for the faith. You know, again, for a victim, we refer to the enemy of their life. But for martyr, we keep referring to what they loved or who they loved.

And again, it's kind of similarly, we draw attention to the cause of death for the victim. But we talk about the reason of death for the martyr. The cause of death was blunt force trauma. The cause of death for a victim was, again, an accident. But when we talk about a martyr, we talk about the reason they died. Not just how they died, but why they died. And that's so important because when it comes to martyrs,

When it comes to victims, their death isn't necessarily connected to their life. So we talk about, yeah, their death ended their life. But for martyrs, their death is intrinsically and essentially connected to their life. For a victim, death ends their life. For a martyr, death crowns their life. You know, we typically, I think when we think of martyrs, we think of red martyrs, right? those who give their life for the faith. And we think about those moments, that big moment,

we call it the moment of truth, that moment of truth where they declared with their life, with their entire life, with their, by dying, what they believe in, and they pointed to this reality. And that's accurate, but more often than not, this big moment of truth was simply the last in a long line of moments of truth. For the martyr, right,

for the one who gives their life for what they believe in. In this case, Christian martyrs. give their life for Christ, that big moment of truth is simply the last, in a long line, of successive moments of truth. So, like, we have people like St. Maximilian Colby, who was a martyr in Auschwitz. And what happens was there's this, someone escaped. And so they took 10 men and said, okay, we're going to kill all of you. And Maximilian Colby stepped out and said, listen, I'll die for that man. He says he has a wife. He says he has a family. And why why should we kill you instead of him? Well, he said, I'm a Catholic priest. That's why. And that's a big

moment of truth while St. Maximilian Colby laid down his life. But if you read his story, the story of his life, what you see is that he did that all the time. He always were witness to Jesus. He always denied himself out of love for Christ. Yes, here's this bold moment, this brave moment, this courageous moment. But he also, he had a whole life full of humble moments of putting other people ahead of him just in line, putting other people's needs ahead of his just when it comes to wanting himself wanting to get things done. And so this last big moment of truth is simply the last in a long line of successive moments of truth. St. Gianna Mola, St. Gianna, who,

she was pregnant with, I think, her fourth child, is that accurate? Her fourth child, and she had cancer, and the doctor said, we can treat the cancer, but it will kill your child. And St. Gianna was a martyr for love of her child. She's a martyr for life. But again, that moment of truth came after a lifetime of successive moments of truth.

So her death, again, didn't end her life. It crowned her life. Maximilian Colby's death didn't end his life. It crowned his life. They had already, these two, Maximilian Colby and Gianna, had been white martyrs long before they were red martyrs. White martyrs are basically those who with their lives. You know, red martyrs, they pour out their blood all at once. White martyrs are those who just pour out their lives drop by drop. You see all these moments of truth in their lives and in the life of every Christian, all these moments of truth have a single unifying truth. All these moments of truth have a single unifying word,

and that word is Jesus. You think about ourselves, too, all the different choices in our lives, all the different interests, all the different hobbies, all the different activities, all the different relationships of our lives are united by this one relationship with Jesus Christ. That's what makes a martyr a martyr.

Whether you end your life or whether your life is end it or not, what makes a martyr a martyr is that all these different parts of our lives are united by this one relationship that we have with Jesus. And I sometimes I wonder, I wonder when it comes to martyrs. I wonder if this is us. I oftentimes wonder if it's me. Like if that moment of truth could possibly be something that I would live up to. And I wonder if it's not, then what are we doing here? If it's not, what are we doing here? If it's not, what are we doing here. A bunch of years ago I was here on campus and I had this conviction that some of the students who were praying with us, some of the students who were with us, that some of them would

ultimately be called to be martyrs. And I still have that conviction. I still have that conviction. Every time we have a new group of freshmen who come to this campus, every time we send out a group of seniors who graduated into the world, I think, okay, that's what we're doing here? Because that's the question I have to ask is, so what are we, what am I as a priest doing? What am I preparing them for? Am I preparing them to like, okay, as you go out forth, just pray a little more than most people. Like as you go forth, you know, pay your taxes and stay out of jail. As you go forth, hey, just be a little bit nicer than everyone else. And a lot of times that's what we do as a church. We just seem like we're preparing people to be

nice as opposed to here as a priest just to stand and look at the congregation and realize. realize I'm looking at future martyrs. That's what this is training for. This is training to be martyrs. You know, the former Archbishop of a very big city in the United States, he's reported to have once said, he said, not too long ago, he said, I will die in my bed, my successor will die in prison,

and his successor will die a martyr in this country, which is not beyond the, pale. I don't know if you know this, but there's been a total of over 70 million, 70, 7.70 million Christians have been martyred in the last 2,000 years. Over half of those have come from the last century. 70 million martyrs. Half of those were in the first 19 centuries of Christianity, and half of those were in the last century of Christianity. It's one of the reasons why St. Paul in the second reading today, he's writing to the Ephesians and he says, okay, Here's what I want for you.

I want you to come to mature manhood. I want you to become mature, basically, to the full stature of Christ and to be a witness, to be a martyr, and to be able to realize, ask the question, okay, do I look like Jesus who is killed by this world or do I look like the world that killed Jesus? Because that's the big question. So many of us, too many of us are just nice.

Too many of us look exactly like the world that killed Jesus instead of like Jesus who is killed by this world. And so we just say, but isn't enough to be nice? No, this world has a ton of nice people. There are so many nice people out in the world. It's ridiculous. You and I have to be more.

I mean, if we're going to follow Christ, we have to be more. This is not an option. This is a command. This is what we're made for? Because we need to be able to do what? As Christians, we need to be able to love the unlovable. We need to be able to touch the untouchable. We need to be able to reach the unreachable.

We need to be able to save those that the world has deemed unsavable. And not even that, but we're not even worthy of being saved. If we're going to be Christians, if we're going to truly beat, what Jesus said, before he sends to heaven, he says, I'll send the Holy Spirit of power, and then you'll be martyrs, then you'll be witnesses. We have to be the kind of people who are able to love defiantly. That when someone says, well, that's someone else's job,

that we're the ones who say, yeah, that's my job. Came across the story years ago, and I've repeated it many times, but I just want to share it again. On the island of Nantucket, right off the northeast coast of the United States, You can go there and they're all along the shore, maybe spaced out 50 meters or so apart. There are these little huts. They're called huts of refuge. And they were built there years, years ago by the early residents of Nantucket Island.

And the idea was that on the windward side of Nantucket, like the side facing the North Atlantic, there are incredible storms and it's really rocky. And so what would happen is ships would get near to. Nantucket and they would dash against the rocks and they'd be shipwrecked and they would die. And so what the residents of the island of Nantucket did is they created this thing called the Humane Society. Now, we think the Humane Society, we think of people take care of dogs and cats and strays and that kind of thing. But back then what would happen if you were part of the Humane Society, then you volunteered to, whenever there was a storm, there was someone who was in every one of these huts of refuge

and they would scan the horizon to see if there were any ships and they would scan the horizon to see if there were any ships in distress. And if there were, if there's a ship that hit a rock and was in distress, They would ring a bell and they'd ring bells over the entire island. And everyone, if you were part of the Humane Society, you realize your job was you would rush to the coast. You would get into a little wooden rowboat and you would row out into the storm to see if you could rescue someone. That's what it was to be in the Humane Society. You saved lives. It meant that you put your life on the line and risk everything in order to see.

This is a thing because there's no guarantee, right? There's no guarantee that even anyone would be alive out there. But you were willing to risk your life on the chance that someone might be alive. That's what it was to be in the Humane Society. It's so much so that they had a motto. And the motto was, because you could go out right, you could risk your life to save someone. They might not even be there, and you might not make it home.

And the motto was, you have to go out, you don't have to come back. Because they were in the business of saving lives. They weren't nice people. They were more than nice people. Now, of course, over the course of years, the United States developed the Coast Guard, and from then on, the job of rescuing people was the job of the professionals.

It wasn't the job of volunteers, wasn't the job of the residence, wasn't the job of the ordinary person, it was the job of the pro. But the Humane Society, they didn't disband, as we know, they still exist, and a couple times a year, they have a banquet in somewhere like Boston,

and they hand out awards for people who... They hand out awards for people who do nice things. And I wonder, I wonder that here's the apostles, here's the early disciples of Jesus, and they were given the gift of the Holy Spirit, and they were told to go out and save the unsavable and reach the unreachable and love the unlovable.

And they did. And what happens now is so often we just say, okay, that's someone else's job. Yet the Christian, the martyr, the witness says, no, it's not enough to be nice. I have to be more. And this is the last thing. I think in our church we have a lot of nice people.

But nice is different than good. And Jesus ascends today. He ascended into heaven. And what did the gospel say? The gospel said, and they went forth, and they preached everywhere while the Lord worked through them. That he had departed, but he wasn't absent. That he didn't leave them alone. He didn't leave them orphaned.

He didn't leave them without power. He gave them the promised Holy Spirit. And what happened? He ascended to heaven, and they spent the next nine days just praying for that gift of the Holy Spirit. That's what we're going to do. I invite you to do this. This is Ascension Sunday. In a week, it's going to be Pentecost Sunday.

And I know we cut off a couple days because usually, essentially not Thursday, but whatever. But what I'm going to invite you to do is to pray for that gift of the Holy Spirit, to say, okay, Lord, I'm a pretty decent person. Okay, but that's not enough. I'm a pretty okay guy. That's not enough. I'm a nice girl.

That is great. It's not enough. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to be more than nice. And we need this gift of the Holy Spirit, this gift of God that makes us more, more than ourselves, more than just people who believe. But this gift of the Holy Spirit that actually makes us martyrs, that actually makes us witnesses, people who are more than nice, because nice is different than good.