Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 06/07/20 In His Image and Likeness

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

Homily from the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. You do not have to know the details of a person’s life to know they are worth loving. Human worth is rooted in our deepest identity. And our deepest identity comes from being made in God’s image and likeness. And God’s deepest identity is love. Mass Readings from June 7, 2020: Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9 Daniel 3:52-562 Corinthians 13:11-13 John 3:16-18

So today is the anniversary, today's Trinity Sunday or June 7th is the 17th anniversary of the first Mass I ever celebrated, which is actually not technically true. I celebrated, I was ordained on the sixth, but the first mass I got to celebrate like I was like the lead guy. The previous mass, the bishop was the lead guy, whatever, still on the show. But I was thinking about this because 17 years ago on this day, just got to pray, got to pray as a priest at the Mass. And it was phenomenal, but I'd come across the story of another guy, Father John, and Father John, the first Mass he ever celebrated. He had a vision, like the whole, the Lord revealed himself to him. Here's the vision. So Father John is celebrating his very first Mass.

And as he's celebrating his first Mass, he sees three figures, and one is figure of Jesus, and Jesus is chained. He's shackled next to two other human beings. And Father John had this powerful, the image spoke to him in a way of a woman. way that made it very, very clear. So Father John left Mass, you got, well, got done with that, he finished, I'm sure he finished like a normal person, and he went to speak to a hermit, his name was Father Felix, who was this older man that he just really trusted in, and he said, Father Felix, I had an image from Jesus that we need to start a religious community, and this religious community needs to be dedicated to ransoming those who are

slaves. At the time, there were a number of Christians who were being, as Islam, that continued to spread throughout northern Africa and the Middle East and getting closer and closer to Europe. As they would take over these villages or these towns, these cities, what would happen is they would enslave these Christians. And so here's Father John who says, I have this image. Here's Jesus. He's enslaved with our brothers and sisters. And so what we need to do is we need to do something about this critical thing that slavery exists in our world. And I believe we're called to actually go to them and purchase their lives back with gold if necessary or with gold if we can and with our very lives if necessary.

So they prayed about it. Actually, they didn't just pray for weeks or for months. They actually prayed for years because the cause was urgent and the cause was important, but the decision itself had to be guided by the Lord. And after a number of years of prayer, they knew it was time, and they founded this thing called the Trinitarian Order. And the Trinitarian Order was at first this group of men

who wherever there were slaves, they would go to where there were slaves, and if they could, they would buy back these slaves with gold. And if they couldn't buy back slaves with gold, they would buy back slaves by exchanging themselves for the slaves. And their motto of the purpose of the Trinitarian Order was, we exist for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity and for the redemption of captives. we exist for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity and the redemption of captives.

Which I think is important, I think, to point out this Trinitarian order on Trinity Sunday. Today, so Trinity Sunday today, it's known as the preacher's nightmare because Trinity is a mystery. In fact, as I said before at the beginning of mass, it is the central mystery of the Christian faith. And it's one of those things where not only we can't grasp the infinite identity of God, in our finite minds. But also, the think about Trinity Sunday is it's very clearly all about God himself. I mean, everything we do at Mass, everything we do in Christianity and Catholicism,

it's all about God. Like, he's the central character, he is the source and ground of everything. We kind of get invited into this. But on Trinity Sunday, we're just invited to reflect on the very identity of God. About who God is in himself, that he is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which is super abstract, right? It's like completely vague, really hazy. vague, really hazy, and also bad math.

Because we say God is one and three. That is very poor, very poor math. But we realize, right, it's not bad math, it's truth. God is one God in three divine persons. So when we say one and three, what we're saying is, God is one what? And he's three whos, that he is the father and the son. So the father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. But the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father,

and the Son is not the Father, and the Son is not the Father. So they're all one God, they're one what, but three who's. And if we reflect on that, not only do our hearts kind of burst, but so do our heads, because it's just like, it's this big headache. And so a lot of times I think we just don't pay attention to that. We just kind of like, okay, Father's the Holy Spirit, whatever. And it's too complex. But the reality, of course, is that God gets to tell us who he is.

This is one of the truths of Trinity Sunday is is God gets to tell us who he is. No matter how vague, no matter how complex, no matter how much we don't understand it, God gets to tell us who is. That's the point in some anyways of Exodus chapter 34, which we heard today. Here's Moses going up the mountain with two stone tablets. Now this is the second time Moses has gotten tablets from the Lord, but he came down the first time and broke them.

And so he has to go back up the mountain. The mountain, he's going up the mountain is an important detail. He's going up the mountain with two stone tablets that are blank. And one of the things that that tells us is that Moses is going up the mountain with the knowledge that, God, I don't get to tell you who you are. You get to tell me who you are. I'm going up with blank tablets, and what you reveal to me about yourself, you get to write down. Because I'm made in your image and likeness.

You're not made in my image and likeness. And that's the thing is that that's how all this affects us. Because we need to know that, right? How does this affect me? Because we're a bunch of narcissists and egotists. Okay, how does this affect us? How does God getting to tell us who he is? How does that affect us?

Well, answer, what is the human being? Like, is a human being just an accident of nature? Is a human being just highly evolved creatures? Do we have, as human beings, do we have any value? And where does it come from? If we do have any value, where does that value come from? Well, again, our declaration of faith is what? What is human being?

Our declaration of faith is that we're made in God's image and likeness. Again, not that he is made in our image of likeness. Moses goes up the temple, goes up the mountain with blank tablets. Because God, you get to tell us who you are. We are made in your image and likeness. You're not made in our image and likeness. So what is a human being? Human being is someone who, anyone, who is made,

made in God's image and likeness. And what that means is that we're a gift, we're like God. We have an intellect, we can think, we have a will, we can choose, we can create, that we're free and maybe above everything else, almost almost with everything else, is that because we're mating God's image or likeness, we have dignity. A dignity that, yes, can be violated but can't be taken away. A dignity that can be demeaned but can't be destroyed. And I don't think we often live this way.

which is one of the reasons we're given Trinity Sunday again. I don't think we often recognize that truth that we're made in God's image and likeness. I want to bring up a man named George Floyd. You all know his name. I don't want to... He was, his funeral was this past week. And in the funeral, if you ever got to stream it,

you got to see that there were many people in George's life that loved him, in his life that loved him. Many people loved him in his death. So he was a man who was loved. And if you've done any reading about his life, you also know that he was a man who was flawed. That when he was murdered, he had methamphetamine in his system. That at various times in his life, he got into some bad things.

At some point he was homeless, not that that's a character flaw. In fact, he'd done five years in prison for the situation of breaking into a woman's home. he knocked on her door with a gun. There are some buddies that were his accomplices to try to rob the place. When she saw what he was doing, she was a young black woman who was pregnant. When she saw what he was doing,

she tried to stop, but he barged his way in and pointed his gun at her womb and held her there at gunpoint while his friends robbed her home. He went to jail for five years for that. So he did his time. I'm not trying to talk negatively about the dead. I'm not trying to speak disparagingly about the dead.

But I would say that sometimes, if we had met a person who lived a life like this, who made some bad choices. We might jump to the conclusion. We might be tempted to jump to the conclusion that that's the kind of person who's been disqualified. That's the kind of person who doesn't deserve dignity. That's a temptation in our broken hearts

that we sometimes jump to that place. But when you saw the video of him being murdered, in that moment, his humanity was on display even as it was being violated. Because everyone who watched that was broken by it. You didn't ask, what was he a good guy or a good guy? or a bad guy, in that moment the truth of the goodness of his humanity was revealed, maybe even because it was being violated.

Because we watched this and we recognized something in him that hadn't been lost. And it didn't even matter whether he was a good guy or a bad guy. In subsequent actions since then, there are some good people who have been killed. There's a man. You might know of him. His name is David Dorn. David Dorn in St. Louis. He's a retired 77-year-old retired police chief who was trying to do.

protect one of his friends pawn shops from it being robbed and looted and he got shot there right on the sidewalk and there's a video of that too and you see that and you're like oh my gosh like here's this man who's described by so many others is he was a father to everybody he's a good person and you don't even have to contrast David Dorn and George Floyd whether a good guy or bad guy because as Christians we don't need to know the details of a person's life to know that they're worth loving why because we're mainly got to image of likeness and that can be violated, but it can't be taken away.

That can be demeaned, but it can't be destroyed. Again, as Christians, as Catholics, we don't need to know the details of a person's life to know this fact that they are absolutely worth loving, because what is a human being? Human being is someone who's made in God's image and likeness. And that dignity, again, it can be violated, but can't be taken, it can be demeaned, but it cannot be destroyed.

And we recognize that the deaths of all these people, anybody, reminds us the dangers of dehumanizing someone, the danger of dehumanizing someone, which is the refusal to see someone or hear someone or treat someone as human, as being someone made in God's image and likeness. And for us Catholics it's even worse. For us Catholics is even worse because we know. I've had a number of conversations over the last two weeks since George Floyd's death on Memorial Day with our Catholic brothers and sisters, a black Catholic brothers and sisters, who have said, Father, why have you never preached on racism?

And I was like, I guess I never, here's this, I have to apologize right away. Why have I never preached on racism? I might have included it in a list of sins at some point, but my thought was, well, if we talk about the dignity of every human being, well, duh, this is clearly a violation, sexism, racism, any kind of false discrimination is clearly evil. It's clearly a sin. I just thought we knew this.

I just thought we knew this that it didn't necessarily have to be said, but that was wrong. It has to be said because every person you and I have ever met is made an image and likeness of God. Whether they're a good person in our world or a bad person in our world. I think my buddy, C.S. Lewis, says it really well. Because C.S. Lewis made the connection. He said, here's what it is. Here's what it is. If we're actually surrounded by people who are made against image and likeness, then we are, in his words, he says, we live in a society of possible gods and goddesses then.

He goes on to say, he says, remember that the dullest, most uninteresting person you can talk to, may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you'd be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption, such as you now meet at all in the nightmares. All day long, he says, all day long, we are in some degree helping each other to one of these or other these possibilities.

these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with other people. Like in light of this, like any person you meet, again, no matter old or young, no matter what sex they are, no matter what race they are, ethnicity, whether socioeconomic class, he says, all of our relations with human beings. This is what a Christian, that's how Christian thinks. It's how Christians see other people. He says, we conduct all of all of of our dealings with another like this, every friendship, every love, every play, every politics, every politics.

He didn't underline that, I'm underlining that. To say this, there are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations and cultures, arts, civilizations, those are all mortal and they will all pass away. But it is with immortals that we joke. It's with immortals that we work with. It is an immortal person that you marry.

or that you snub, or that you exploit, or that we just pass by, and don't treat like there's someone made in God's image and likeness, or that we just simply allow them to be exploited or treated in a way that violates who they truly are. Because every single person is made in God's image and likeness, and therefore I don't need to know the details of a person's life to know that they're worth loving. at the same time I might need to know the details of their life in order to actually love them.

This is where it comes back to the Trinity. Because Trinity is what God is intellect and will and is free and creates. But the deepest mystery of the Trinity is not that God is powerful, it's not that God is omniscient, it's not that God is everywhere, it's that God is love. The deepest central identity of God is that He is. He's not just the God who loves, he's a God who is love. It's that from all eternity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit pouring themselves out in the communion of love.

And this is the thing. If God is love, if His deepest identity is love, and you're made in God's image and likeness, that means that your deepest identity is love. It's not just to know the fact that people are worth loving, but it's actually to love other people who are worth loving. It's to be transformed by this. Again, because I think a lot of times I know for myself, like my faith is very much in my head,

It might even be in my heart, but it doesn't necessarily change my life and who I love and how I love. I was listening to a conversation between two friends of mine, one's Jeff Kaven's other, is Father Josh Johnson, and they were talking about how do we heal racial divides. And at one point, Father Josh shared the story of a parish that he knew up, I'm not sure if he was in his parish or if it was something that we heard of. There were a number of young Anglo moms. These young, I don't know how young older were, these moms, these Anglo moms had a had a Bible study in a prayer group and they met, they loved each other deeply, and they recognized there was a group of Latina moms in their parish that they didn't

really know it all. But this is great. We love having our, you know, Hispanic masses. We love our Latinos in our culture and our parish. This is great, but they weren't part of their Bible studies. And so at one point someone had the thought, like, you know what we should do. We have all these Anglo moms. We should get in touch with these Latina moms. And so they reached out and said, we have a Bible study. We love you to be part of it. We meet on 11 o'clock on Thursday mornings. And they said, that is not going to work for us because we work. And so they said, okay, when we'll work?

They said 11 p.m. on Thursdays. And they said, great. Meet us, we meet at the church or at someone's house. And we can't go to your house, can't go to the parish. Because in our neighborhood, after that amount of time at night, the neighborhood's so bad that there's no public transit. Mom said, no problem, we'll come to you. So they came to them.

And they started meeting on a regular basis at 11 p.m. at night for prayer for like deep, actually, like, fellow. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And hearts were changed and lives were changed because they began sharing lives, sharing life with each other. They got to know each other's families. It wasn't just that one night and just the moms getting together. It was families getting together. It was the community getting together.

It was the whole parish ultimately getting together. A lot of these moms actually ended up taking Spanish so they could just speak one-on-one with these other Latina moms. And you think about this incredible transformation where it's not just like, oh, hey, I tolerate you, because that's what, it would be fun. what would be fine. If we were just made a God's image and likeness and all that meant was you have an intellect and a will and we're free, then we just tolerate each other and we just don't get in each other's way. But if God is love, that means I get out of myself because to love is to make a gift of yourself. To love is to get out of yourself. And again, if God is love and God and again, if God is love God and we're making God's image and likeness, we're

most fully ourselves when we love like God. We're most fully ourselves when we actually love the people around us. And I think about this. Looking at this parish in this transformation that happened with these Anglo moms and Latina moms, Jeff pointed out he said, actually, that's not even the most transformational moment. The most transformational moment wasn't the fact that some of these Anglo moms learned Spanish, wasn't the fact that they were willing to change their schedule to meet at 11 p.m. and said 11 a.m. Wasn't even the fact that they were willing to say, let's reach out to other moms who were not necessarily completely like us. The transformational moment came in the moment of faith.

And any one of those people, any one of those moms, said, wait a second, if I'm made in God's image and likeness, if it's true that what we read in the gospel today, John 316, that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that all who come to believe in him may have life, and I'm made in his image of likeness, that means that that shapes the way I see God because he gets to tell me who he is. And that shapes the way I see myself because if I made his image in his image of life, that means likeness, then when he tells me who he is, he's now revealed to me who I am. And it also changes the way I see other people because if they're made in God's image

and likeness, that means I don't need to know the details of their lives in order to know that they're worth loving, but I might need to know the details of their life if I'm actually going to be loving. This is the thing that's... The difference between being Catholics in our creed and being Catholics in our lives. Love. That's the difference. God is love.

Therefore, if I don't love, not only am I not like God, I'm not even me. Of course, we have a history of the church speaking against love and speaking against using other people. I just want to note this before we get to the last thing. This document, in 1537, Pope Paul III, 1537, Pope Paul the Third wrote this document called Sublimus Deus, daus, 50 years or so before that Christopher Columbus had come to the New World, and with him, a bunch of exploitation of native peoples. And so the Pope, Pope Paul III, he wrote this document, this papal bull, not just like a letter, people bull means like, we're in business, right?

A bull. This is serious. And what he said in Sibleemus deus is he said, when you encounter the native peoples of any land but of the new world here, you must know that they are our brothers and our sisters. Even if they don't, he said, even if they don't share the Christian faith with us, they are made in God's image and likeness, and any effort to exploit them, enslave them, or misuse them, is strictly condemned.

He called it evil 50 years after Christopher Columbus discovered the new world. Here's the church declaring definitively, if you mistreat, abuse. enslave or demean these people. You are demeaning Jesus himself. Of course, some people listen, some people don't. Just like now, some people listen to the Pope and some people don't. That's why we need a renewal of the Trinitarian Order. Because we know the truth. The Trinitarian Order was founded on this motto for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity and for the redemption of captives. That I didn't enslave someone, but if I can have to have to be,

help them out of slavery, then that's my job, that's my duty. That I didn't do anything to be oppressive to anyone, but if I see someone who's oppressed, then I need to do something about that. That's my job. Why? Because I'm made in God's image or likeness, they're made in God's image and likeness. That if I see injustice, I might not be the cause of their injustice. But if I can do something about it, then I have to.

Why? Because they're made in God's image and likeness. And if I'm made in God's image and likeness, then I have to love, I have to love, even if it's not my fault. even if it's not my fault. And this is the last thing. He had Father Josh talking with Jeff, and the next day he and I had a conversation online.

You can see it. It's down the Ascension presents channel. One of the things he highlighted was like in the face of evil in the world, the face of racism in the world, in the face of any kind of discrimination or injustice in the world where I wasn't the cause, like I didn't do it. Like I was not, man, it's not my fault. What did I do, you know?

He says as a Christian though, we have to be like Jesus, or like the Trinitarians. Because Jesus was innocent. What did he do? He offered himself for the ransom of all of us who are guilty. He says that means that as Christians on Trinity Sunday, we need to be the Trinity. On Trinity Sunday, here is the Father who gave his only begotten son,

his innocent only begotten son, to make reparation for our sins, to set us free. Father Josh had this call, he said, you might not be guilty of the sin of racism, might not be guilty of the sin of exclusion. You might not be guilty of any kind of evil in your life, unlikely, but still. But if you're a Christian, that means we carry each other's burdens, willingly, that we give of ourselves willingly,

that we make reparation by offering prayers for those who have been abused, by fasting for those who have been excluded, for doing penances for those who have experienced injustice of sexism or racism or any kind of unjust discrimination, we actually not only get to do that, we have to do that. Because just like St. John of Matha and St. Felix of Allure, our lives have this purpose. Our lives have this goal. Our lives have this mission. And if we live it like that, looking like God, loving like God, making reparation like God, then we'll live lives that give glory to the Most Holy Trinity

and are spent for the redemption of captives.