Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 07/05/25 Signers

Episode Date: July 5, 2025

Homily from the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. There are some things worth risking everything for. Those who signed the Declaration of Independance risked everything. Every Christian who follows Jesus is risking everything in order to have the Lord. Mass Readings from July 5, 2025: Isaiah 66:10-14 Psalm 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20Galatians 6:14-18 Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

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 33777.7. 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 Luke. Chapter 10, verses 1 through 12 and verses 17 through 20. At that time, the Lord appointed 72 others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, the harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few. So ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way. Behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.

Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals. and greet no one along the way. Into whatever house you enter, first say, peace be to this household. If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest upon him, but if not, it will return to you. Stay in the same house,

and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment. Do not move about from one house to another. Whatever town you enter, and they welcome you, eat what is set before you. Cure the sick in it, and say to them, the kingdom of God is at hand for you. Whatever town you enter,

and they do not receive you. out into the streets and say, the dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you. Yet know this. The kingdom of God is at hand. I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town. The 72 returned, rejoicing, and said, Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name. Jesus said, I have observed Satan falling like lightning from the sky. Behold, I have given you the power to tread upon serpents and scorpion. and upon the full force of the enemy, and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you,

but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. The gospel of the Lord. May you have a seat? So in high school I had one of my high school jobs was there was a man who owned a farm, he was a bachelor, and he passed away. And the guy who bought the farm, purchased the farm, different sense. when he purchased the farm, he wanted me to clean it up because the previous owner had a bunch of scrap metal all over the place and tires and about all things, refrigerators.

So my job in the summer was to go out with a truck and just load up scrap metal, load up tires, the whole thing. In the course of that, I played the radio and I got to know a guy whose radio came on, I don't know, somewhere in mid-morning during the day, and he had news and comment, and his name was Paul Harvey. I don't know if you've ever heard of Paul Harvey, but he had this great show, was Paul Harvey News and Comment, and he also had the rest of the story. It was great. I loved it.

But the thing, he would give some news, and then he'd have his comment, his commentary. At one point, Paul Harvey was talking about the Fourth of July. Here we are just having passed the Fourth of July, and he was talking about the signers, the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. Those 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and those 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, And I think right now, here we are in 2025, we look back and we think we have this critique of those men. We have a critique of their lives. And I guess there's stuff we could criticize.

I mean, they have the men of privilege as they're men of wealth. Many of them who owned slaves. They're easy to criticize because they had their feelings. And I think we've all heard of those. But there's something I didn't know about those signers. And it's something I actually didn't know about the Declaration. I've always known the first words of the Declaration of Independence, right? these truths to be a self-evident, the god is, or the creator, has endowed every man

with inalienable rights. I did not know the last words of the Declaration of Independence. And these last words of the Declaration of Independence were signed by these 56 men, these signers. And the last words are this. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledged to each. other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. We mutually pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. I never ever thought. These men of privilege, these men of wealth, these again, even slave owners, these men who

are easy to criticize, every one of them was risking their life to put their name at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence. Every single one of them, there was a massive risk. In fact, Ben Franklin, who signed the declaration, he said this. He said, we must all indeed either hanged together or most assuredly wish you all be hanged separately. But these men were willing to take that risk. Because they believe that there are some things worth risking security for. There are some things worth risking wealth for.

There's some things risking your lives for. In fact, the same Ben Franklin. He once said this. He said, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Ben Franklin is the only sign of the Declaration who signed all those three original founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution.

The only one who is willing to say, no, there are some things that are worth sacrificing security for. One of those things is liberty. And those who are not willing to give up temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Why? Because what you value, you're willing to sacrifice for. Those 56 men, what they valued, they were willing to sacrifice for, you willing to take a risk for.

I think about that when it comes to the 72. We have the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. We have the 72 who are sent out by Jesus. I don't know if you've ever stopped and thought, because I've been praying about this for a while. Stopped and thought about the incredible risk that those men were taking. to be sent out. I mean, it's easy to forget about the risk. There is no structure available. Like, there is no backup. There's no one coming to help you if you're gone into trouble.

Again, even as Jesus says, okay, take with you, don't take with you any backup. No, no money bag, no second tunic. You can wear sandals. Okay, thanks Jesus. But there is, they were risking absolutely everything. Why? Because they believed that there are some things worth risking for. There are some things that are worth risking rejection for. There are some things that are worth risking insecurity for. There are some things that are even worth risking your entire life for. All those men, they had no backup, they had no resources, they had no guarantee.

All they had was Jesus. Only Jesus. And the chance, the chance to take God's grace to people who must. might just say yes to God's grace. They were willing to risk because they had something they valued more. Like St. Paul, St. Paul in the second reading today, St. Paul's letter to the Galatians who says, may I never boast in anything except for the cross of Jesus Christ, by which I have been crucified to the world. The world's been crucified to me. You know, there's another, there's another moment that Paul's writing. And at one point, Paul kind of gives his pedigree. He gave Paul gives a list of the

things that he used to take pride in, the things that if anything gave Paul security, if anything gave Paul, like, credibility, Paul says, I'm going to give up all those. In fact, he said this. He said, if anyone thinks he can, this is a quote from Paul. He said, is any of them thinks he can be, he can be, he can be, he can be, he says, all the more can I? He says, I was circumcised on the eighth day, right? I'm fully Jewish. On the race of Israel, on the tribe of Benjamin. I'm a Hebrew and Hebrew parentage. In observance of the law of Pharisees, so, I was So, like, he's like, you can't be more Jewish than me, right? I am all in.

A Pharisee. In Zeal, I persecuted the church. In righteousness based on the law, I was blameless. He wasn't just someone who was born into the Jewish faith. He also lived the Jewish faith to a T. In righteousness of the law, he was blameless. But then he goes on to say, but whatever gains I had,

these I have come to consider as a loss because of Jesus Christ. Like those 56. Whatever security I have, I'm willing. willing to give these up because of liberty. Here's St. Paul saying, whatever security, whatever credibility, whatever accomplishments I had, I consider all of them a loss because of Jesus,

because he's the one. He goes on to say, more than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. And he says this line that just is incredible. He says, for his sake, I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish.

Now, that word in Greek is the word scuba. He says, all things, everything I used to hope and everything used to trust in, everything I used to be proud of, every one of my accomplishments, I consider them scubola, which literally means done. I consider them just manure, that I may gain Christ and be found in him. Here's Paul who realizes, no, there are some things worth risking. There are some things worth letting go up. There are some things worth giving up when you find the one thing that you're made for.

In fact, that's one of the reasons why St. Augustine, St. Augustine says something like this. He said, the one who has God and nothing else has everything. But the one who has everything except God has nothing. The one who has God and nothing else has everything. But the one who has everything except God actually has nothing. Saying essentially, still if I lose, if I lose everything, I still have the Lord. And it's worth it. Because the reality is because Christians, we can still lose everything except Jesus.

As Christians, we can put our whole lives on the line and just be exactly like those 72, and we can lose everything. We can lose everything like many of the 56. So as I'm sitting there or working out listening to my car radio play as I'm cleaning up this farm, Paul Harvey, he went on to describe who those 56 signers were, what they were like and what it cost them. He said it like this. This is a quote from Paul Harvey. He said, what kind of men were they? 24 were lawyers and jurists. 11 were merchants. Nine were farmers and large plantation owners, men a means well educated. And they signed the Declaration of Independence

knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured. Give some examples. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay off his debts, and he died in rags. He was one of the signers. Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were kept from him, taken from him, and poverty was his reward at the end of the war. Vandals or soldiers or both looted the properties of Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Hayward, Rutledge, and Middleton. took everything they owned.

The Battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., he noted that the British general named Cornwallis, he had taken over the Nelson home, this man's home, for his headquarters. Thomas Nelson, Jr., quietly went up to George Washington and asked General Washington to open fire on his own home. His home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt. Man named Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed.

The enemy jailed his wife. and she died within a few months. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she lay dying and their 13 children fled for their lives. All of his fields, everything he owned, was laid to waste. And for more than a year, he lived in four sending caves, returning to home to find his wife dead and his children gone. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

Two others, Lewis, Norris, and Livingston also suffered the same fate. Five of these signers were caught by the, British as traitors and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army. Another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships during the Revolutionary War. That was the price of being a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Again, we can criticize them as men of privilege. We can criticize them as men of means. We can criticize them as wealthy people. But every one of them put their privilege to the service. They put their wealth to the service of others. Every single one of them put their lives on the line for the hope and the dream that is America. For the hope and the fight for something called liberty.

They risked their lives and it cost them their lives. And that's just for our country. Paul, the 72, they risked their lives. For God himself. Paul in 72, without any guarantee, risked their lives for the possibility of being able to see. set prisoners free. And Paul himself, he says in the gospel, in the second reading today, he says,

I bear the marks of Jesus on my body. We believe that Paul had the st. st. Francis of Assisi had or Padre Pio had, that he was signed because every one of those Christians, they were signers. And so are we. And this is the last thing. The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were willing to risk security for liberty.

Every time you and I make the sign of the cross, we are signers. We are signers who say that there's something worth risking. There's something not just worth risking my security, not just risking my wealth, not just worth risking my future. There's something worth risking my entire life, like St. Paul. I consider my entire accomplishments, everything I could ever possibly gain as so much rubbish for the possibility of gaining Jesus. So on this 4th of July, this Independence Day weekend, to be grateful for the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, but to realize that you and I as Christians,

we are also signers. And every time we trace the sign of the cross over our foreheads, over our bodies, over one another, we are declaring as well. That life without Jesus is not worth living, but a life with Jesus, even if I lose everything else, is worth everything.