Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 06/14/26 Precisely

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

Homily from the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. Precisely as strong as it needs to be. When Jesus sends out His Apostles in His Name, He also gives them all of the strength and ability that they are going to need. He continues to give us the same: precisely the strength that we need at every moment. Mass Readings from June 14, 2026: Exodus 19:2-6 Psalm 100:1-2, 3, 5Romans 5:6-11 Matthew 9:36—10:8

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 Matthew. Lord to you, Lord. Chapter 9, verse 36 through chapter 10, verse 8. At the sight of the crowds, Jesus' heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few. So ask the master of the harvest, send out laborers for his harvest.

Then he summoned his 12 disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the twelve apostles are these. First, Simon, called Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, the son of Zebedee and his brother, John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector, James, the son of Alpheus, and Thaddeus, Simon from Cana, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus,

Do not go into pagan territory or into enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. And as you go, make this proclamation. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Cure the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Drive out demons.

Without cost you have received. Without cost you are to give. The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Wait you to have a seat. So this weekend, I, I, I, I have a seat. A sister, one of my older sisters is currently, actually, in the middle of this, the weekend, she's currently running a 200-mile trail race right now, which is just so cool.

I just like so difficult, so hard. And just I think about this whenever, I've been, you've been training for it for a really long time. And so this whole season, she's been training for it. I've been bragging on her and everyone when they hear it, they're like, wow, that's crazy. And like, yeah, yeah, it's fine. But I think it's so cool.

I just, so difficult. I look at that. And I think, man, I could. never. That's what everyone says. The 200 mile trailways, she's running the whole thing. I could never. And I think about this, whenever we come across something that seems so daunting, so intimidating, someone says, I'm going to run a marathon or I'm doing ultra, or I'm going to climb some kind of mountain. We say, I can never do that. Or maybe something like intellectual, that sense of, I'm going to learn a new, I'm learning a new language, or I'm writing a book.

I could never do that. Maybe it's even something you see. You hear about someone doing something heroic. You know, in the moment, they ran into a burning building or something heroic like, over time, they're caring for their sick child or caring for their aging parent and just think, man, they're so good. They're just so giving. I could never do that. Again, we sometimes see that and we're like, man, that's so inspiring. But then we look at ourselves and we're like, again, we come to that conclusion. That's amazing. That's incredible. That's great. But I could never do that. And it, the reality is probably, might be right, right? I don't know that I could run the 200 mile race. I, I can't. And maybe I couldn't. I don't know if I could take care of someone that long,

like some of you have done. Maybe I can't. Maybe I couldn't. I'm thinking about that, especially in light of today's gospel, right? So today's gospel, this is the end of chapter nine, the beginning of chapter 10 of Matthew's Gospel. And if you read back in chapter 9 before this, in the same chapter, one chapter, Jesus has done a bunch of stuff. One is there's a paralyzed man with his four friends, and Jesus forgives his sins, and then heals the paralyzed man. Then there's a 12-year-old girl, right, the daughter of Gyrus. She's dead, and Jesus brings her back to life. There's a woman who's suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years, and she's healed. There is, there are two blind men, and they're both healed. There's a mute man who's also possessed by a demon, and now,

And it only is he healed, but he's also the demon has driven out. And then it says today's gospel. So all these healings, all these incredible things. And then we start with today's gospel where it says Jesus' heart was moved with pity. He saw the crowds. And so he says, okay, beg the master to send out laborers for his harvest, send out other people for the harvest. And I just am wondering if the apostles are listening to Jesus and going like, okay, yeah. And then what?

Like, we're going to send out a bunch of people to do what? Am I just going to breathe on them? Like, if I's just going to kind of wave my hand over them, I'm going to just pat them on the head and then they're there possessed person. Like, you're going to send out laborers for the harvest. What in the world are they going to do? Because they don't, why?

Because they don't have the ability. They don't have the power. They don't have the strength to do what Jesus is doing. They don't have the strength in much of anything, really. The thing about this, they could look at and say, man, I could never. They don't have the strength. There is a popular sitcom.

I don't think I've ever watched a full episode of it. It's called The Big Bang Theory. There are a couple of spinoffs in Big Bang Theory. One of them is called Young Sheldon. So it's like Sheldon Cooper. It's one of the characters in Big Bang Theory. Here he is as a kid. There was a scene in that TV show, Young Sheldon,

where he's a kid and he's talking to his mom. And his mom in the show is pretty faithful Christian, kind of a deep South Baptist kind of a situation. And at one point, his mom has some kind of crisis of faith. And so young Sheldon comes, this little kid comes out onto the porch. And he's very into science. He knows a lot, right? And his mom lets him know that she's struggling with faith.

And he asks her so you don't believe in God anymore. And she says, now this isn't something you're going to worry about. I'm going to figure it out on myself on my own. But Sheldon, her son is like, but maybe I can help. He says, maybe I can provide you a fresh perspective. And she says, I don't think so. And he just starts. He says, did you know that if gravity were slightly more powerful, the universe would collapse

into a ball? She says, I did not. He said, also if gravity were slightly less powerful, the universe would fly apart and there would be no stars and no planets. She looks at her son. She says, what are you doing? But where are you going with this? And he said this line.

he said, it's just that gravity is precisely as strong as it needs to be. If the ratio of electromagnetic force to the strong force wasn't 1%, life wouldn't exist, he asked, what are the odds that that would happen all by itself? So that argument he's presenting is what's called the fine-tuning argument, which is pretty good. It's not necessarily a slam dunk, you know, an argument for God's existence, but it does point in the right direction. I just want to highlight the thing he said. Gravity is precisely as strong as it needs to be. That our universe is precisely as strong as it needs to be.

I think there's something so good and so powerful, something so beautiful about that to realize. Here's God has made this universe. He's made gravity precisely as strong as it needs to be. And the question I want to ask is, is there anything else like that? anything else in our life, in our experience that's like that. And I would, I would maintain this. I would maintain that grace is a lot like that. Go back to the gospel. If you're one of the disciples

and you're going to be sent out like Jesus, imagine we'd say, I could never. Like, I could never be sent out like Jesus. I could never do that. Because I mean, I imagine at this point they've listened to Jesus enough that maybe they could repeat what they've heard him say. Maybe they could add some insight, maybe they had some jokes, you know, some new presentation of Jesus' material. But Jesus didn't send them out to repeat what he said. Didn't send them out to be insightful, didn't send them out to be clever or creative. He sent them out and he told them to do five things. One, proclaim the kingdom of God.

But then he goes on to say, also cured the sick, raised the dead, cleansed lepers, and drive out demons. Now, if you asked any of the apostles, is, yeah, do you have the ability? Do you have the power? Do you have the strength to do any of that? The answer would be absolutely no. I don't have the strength.

I came across this man. His name is John Lennox. John Lennox is a professor of mathematics. He was emeritus at Oxford. He was also a philosopher of science. I'm a Catholic apologist. And he's from Northern Ireland. He was telling the story of meeting a man

who had suffered in the Soviet gulags for seven years. Here's what he said. Just pretend I have an Irish accent because it sounds even cooler. He says, because he uses the word like chap. So he says, I remember one chap who really in a sense humiliated me. John Lennox at this point is telling the story he's an old man. Remember one chap who really in a sense humiliated me if I'm open about it? He was a very short chap for his sight.

And he told me he'd been put in the gulag for seven years because of his faith. He's teaching young people. And he looked up at me and he said, you couldn't face that, could you? He said, I was so embarrassed. Yeah, I said, I looked at him and said, no, I couldn't. And then he smiled. John Lennox said, I'll never forget his smile.

And he looked at me and he said, nor could I. Then he said, you know, I discovered something. I said, what was that? He said, well, when I went into the gulag, I would faint at the side of my own blood if I cut myself shaving. And I saw things there that no more. man should ever have to see in terms of gratuitous cruelty. But you know what he said? He said, I discovered that God comes in and acts in the situation, not before it. God comes in and acts in the

situation, not before it. And John Lennox said, and that struck me for all of my life. Because it resonates with what Jesus said to his disciples when he told them they'd be brought before courts, that he persecuted, and they would know in that hour what they were to say. It also resonates very, very much with this exact moment in the gospel, in this moment in the gospel where Jesus is saying, you're going to go out and you're going to do for others what I have, you've seen me do. And what happens? They were given the amount they needed. They were given the exact grace that they needed.

Romans chapter 5 is the second reading today. It's probably one of my favorite readings in the entire Bible. Our St. Paul says, God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. That he have to realize us. If we're open to it, God gives us precisely the grace that is needed. For open to it, God gives us precisely the amount of grace that we need. Here's a question, do you believe that? Like, do we actually believe that? Do we believe that? That I know this. I know that God will act in the situation, even if he doesn't act before the situation. I believe that God will give me

precisely the amount of help that I need. Do you believe that? I believe God will give me precisely the amount of grace that I need to survive any moment, any trial, any test. Even if survival means failure, or even if survival means seeming failure. I know I've talked about Lord of the Rings quite a few times, but it's really good. You know the story. The story is the whole saga is they have to destroy the ring. The one ring, it's a symbol of the corruptive power of sin in this world. And so the ring bearer is Christ's figure, one of the Christ figures, is Frodo. And so you have Frodo, he's given one mission. The mission is carry the ring to Mount Doom and then where it can be destroyed. And again, the story's massive. There's epic. Takes three movies,

for me'd sake. But he journeys and he carries the ring. There's a moment where he can't go on. And what happens then? Well, then his friend Sam carries him. He's given the strength that he needs in the moment. But then something happens. He gets to Mount Doom. He gets the precipice of being willing to being the place where you can throw the ring into the lava and it'll be into the fires of Dormor and then it'll be destroyed. And remember when I first, I watched the cartoon when I was a kid,

I remember being so disappointed because here's the guy that you're cheering for the whole time. This is Frodo. This is the one. And he gets there and he doesn't do it. He gets to the end and he holds on to it. And he claims it for his own. and he's not going to, he's going to walk away with it. And then another character, Ghalm comes out of nowhere,

and then he attacks Frodo, takes the ring, bites it off his finger, and then falls to his death. And when he falls to his death in the fires of Mordor, he also inadvertently destroys the ring. And it's one of those things, I remember being so disappointed because I'm like, well, Froto failed. I remember looking at this guy thinking, he didn't have the strength he needed.

Or did he? You know, this was such a disappointment, not just for me, but also for many, many people, they talked to J.R. Tolkien, the author about this. And they said, like, no, Frodo was supposed to be the hero. How come he failed? And I love this because Tolkien wrote in response to this. He said this. He said, I do not think that Frodo's failure was a moral failure. He said, at the last moment, the pressure of the ring would reach its maximum, impossible I should have said, for anyone to resist, certainly after long possession. Months of increasing torment. And when starved and exhausted, Frodo had done,

what he could and had spent himself completely as an instrument of providence. He produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. His humility with which he began and his sufferings were justly rewarded by the highest honor and his exercise of patience and mercy toward Ghalam gained him mercy. His failure was redressed. He went on to say, he says, we're finite creatures with absolute limitations upon the powers of our soul and body, structure either by action or endurance. He said, moral failure can only be asserted, I think,

when a man's effort or endurance falls short of his limits. And the blame decreases as that limit is closer approached. We can only say it was a moral failure when our effort or endurance falls short of our efforts. And lastly, he said, Frodo undertook his quest out of love. to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense if he could. And also in complete humility, acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task. His real contract was only to do what he could, to try to find a way, and to go as far on the road as his strength of mind and body allowed.

And he did that. His only task, the only invitation was to do all that he could, was to get to that point. And then what's called a happy accident. In fact, Tolkien invented a word called you catastrophe, which means happy accident. A catastrophe that's also good where here is this accident where Gallum comes out of nowhere. And the mission is achieved. So Frodo's not a failure anymore than you and I are failures when we try with everything we have and fall short. Frodo got as far as he could.

Ferdot got as far as he needed to go. Frodo got precisely as far as he needed to go. And precisely as far as he could go. He may have wanted more like we want more. But he was given precisely the strength needed. And this is the last thing. We know the apostles, the disciples, they could not hope to ever be able to do

what Jesus had asked them or told them to do. They couldn't ever hope to be able to do what he told them to do until he sent them. They couldn't hope to do what he asked them to do until they were given the strength. They could not possibly hope to be able to do what they were told to do until they had to do it. And that's us.

Because they're the model for all Christians that Jesus gives precisely the grace we need. Jesus gives us precisely the ability we need, not less, but also not more. more by God's grace. He makes us precisely as strong as we need to be.