Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 08/18/24 Praise First...and Last

Episode Date: August 17, 2024

Homily from the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Let praise go up first. There is something that every Christian can do at every moment and in every situation...that most of us forget to do. Or we fail to do it. God has called us to offer praise at all times. Mass Readings from August 18, 2024: Proverbs 9:1-6 Psalms 34:2-7Ephesians 5:15-20 John 6:51-58

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. You're reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Chapter 6 verses 51 through 58. Jesus said to the crowds, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. The Jews quarreled among themselves saying,

how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus said to them, amen. Amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day, for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living father sent me, and I have life because of the father,

so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live for us. the gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Might you have a seat. So, I know that, I don't know if the Olympics has played out at this point. I don't know if talking about the Olympics is played out.

I don't know if talking about the opening ceremonies of the Olympics has played out. At this point, it has been so long ago that maybe people just forget, you know, the whole scandal, that whole kind of eruption of discussion over the depiction of the Last Supper in the opening ceremonies. It's kind of an interesting thing because I appreciate the folks who pointed it out. I appreciate the Catholics who have said, okay, this is not right. I appreciate that very much. So we need to actually call out when things are not right, when things are unjust.

That's very, very important. I think in some ways, though, that I would just hesitate to use the word persecution, right? Like sometimes we kind of can fall into the area of saying, like, here's just another example of Catholics being persecuted. I'm not so sure that's a really good thing to say about France. Here's why. Because there has been persecution of the Catholic Church in France. And it didn't involve just depicting the Last Supper in Drag. 230 years ago during the French Revolution,

there was this whole period during the French Revolution called the reign of terror. And right now, as we know right now, Notre Dame, right, that beautiful church that is restoring it right now. It's basically a museum. 5% of Catholic, 5% of French people go to Mass. No, France used to be the eldest daughter of the church. There are so many saints that have come from France.

France used to be this massively Catholic place. But during the French Revolution, during that reign of terror, not only did Notre Dame not just be a museum, they actually rededicated Notre Dame to be the temple dedicated to reason. It was enforced that weeks would no longer have seven days. They have 10 days. They were trying to break any kind of hold of faith on the people.

Not only that, but there were thousands upon thousands of priests and bishops and religious sisters and brothers and faithful Catholics who were put to death, either shot, guillotined, burned alive. And we realized that that's actual persecution. And that persecution, yes, it could happen anywhere. It could happen in Catholic France. It could happen like it happened in Catholic Spain in the 1930s.

It could happen like it happened in Catholic Mexico in the 1920s. We realized that it could happen even here but I think it's important to realize what real persecution looks like. And I think it's important to understand what we should do in the midst of persecution because I would say this, almost to the date, almost to the exact day, 230 years, and one month ago, something remarkable happened. There were these 16 Carmelite sisters, 16 Carmelite nuns, whose order was revoked, essentially.

They were disbanded. They were prohibited from gathering. They were prohibited from living. as brides of Christ. And so they went underground. For two years, they lived as underground sisters, dedicated to the Lord, dedicated to prayer. And they even said, we're dedicating our lives

to the end of this reign of terror. We're dedicating our lives to Catholic France. Well, in June of 1794, they were discovered, and they were held in prison for 26 days until they were marched through the streets to where the guillotine was. That walk took. over two hours, not because it was very long, but because the crowds that surrounded them

kept impeding the progress by shouting at them, by spitting at them, by hurling things at these 16 completely innocent women whose only crime was that they loved Jesus. But when they got to the guillotine, something completely unexpected happened, something remarkable happened. It was at that moment that the youngest of those 16 sisters did something that no one expected. A couple weeks ago, here in the Diocese of Duluth, we put on a camp for our middle schoolers. I talk about all the time.

It's called Camp Survive. And every year we have a different theme. This year, the theme was the Mass. And the title of this camp, this particular summer, was praise. And so, like, the theme song was praise. On the T-shirts was praise on everything we printed, it said praise. And I loved the very first thing that our campers heard,

these middle-schoolers heard, was from some college students. or the emcees of the whole week. These emcees got up and they said, okay, you might be wondering why the theme of camp this week is praise. And they told the story, and a story you might know already,

the story is that in the Old Testament, there were the 12 tribes of Israel, right? The 12s based off the 12 sons of Israel. And the fourth of those tribes, the fourth son, was named Judah. And whenever the people of Israel would travel, like if they're traveling through the wilderness, if they were traveling into the promised land,

if they're traveling any kind of pilgrimage, any kind of journey. If they're going up into battle, there was a phrase that they would use. And that phrase was, let Judah, right, the fourth son, the fourth tribe, let Judah go up first. So if we're going on a trip, if we're going on a journey, if we're going into battle, Judah goes up first. And they made the point, our emcees made the point to these middle schoolers. Why did we call this week praise? It's because Judah, in Hebrew is Yada, which in English means praise. And so the people of Israel, they were told, okay, if you're going on a journey, going

to, if you're going into the unknown, in fact, if you're going into the dangerous unknown, if you're going into battle, Judah goes up first, Yada goes up first, praise goes up first. And so that's what we dedicated the whole week of being able to say, okay, to these campers, again and again, we have to understand that no matter what we do, especially if we're going into the unknown, especially if we're going to something that scares us, especially if we're going into something that actually could destroy us, praise goes up first. In fact, Psalm today, Psalm 34, the very first line says, I will bless the Lord at all times.

His praise shall ever be on my lips. So praise doesn't just go up first. Praise continues. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall ever be on my lips. I'm so grateful to Jeff Kavins. I know Jeff Kavins because he has this book. It's called Praise God and Thank Him.

And in that book, just a very short book, you can read it in a day. praise God and thank him. He makes the distinction between praising God and thanking God. And maybe it's no distinction, but it helped me out a lot. And he said, we praise God for who he is and we thank God for what he's done. And I don't know why, but that just kind of revolutionized how I looked at praise, how I looked at Thanksgiving. Because I can thank God for all these things he's done in my life, all the things he's done

throughout the course of humanity. But to be able to praise God for who he is just seems to be so powerful, which I think is one of the reasons why. praise goes up first. And actually, I think it's one of the reasons why praise defines the life of the church. I don't know if you know this, but so priests and religious sisters and brothers and deacons and bishops,

they all, in a lot of laypeople, dedicate themselves to praying what's called the liturgy of the hours. So there's five times a day, morning prayer, daytime prayer, evening prayer, night prayer, and then this thing called the Office of Readings. That morning prayer is almost always marked, like the first prayer of the day is almost always marked by psalms and canticles,

like songs from the Bible. Bible that give God praise. Almost every one of those Psalms, the very beginning of every morning, so every priest, every beacon, every bishop, every religious sister and brother, start their day off by giving God praise. And I think we do this for a lot of reasons, but I think one of the reasons is because to give God praise at the beginning of the day means that we're not waiting to get what we've asked for to praise him.

It means that before things are certain, we praise him. It means that before we go into that battle of the day or into the journey of that day, before we go into the unknown, we can stop. He can say, God, doesn't matter. Psalm 34, I shall bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall ever be on my lips. Before anything else has happened, we can praise God, which is why I think St. Paul, in the second reading today, the Ephesians, he says it, right?

He says, be filled with the spirit. Not be filled with the spirits. He says, don't be drunk on wine, but be drunk on the Holy Spirit. be filled with the Holy Spirit, says, addressing one another in songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. I think, like, I don't know if I've ever done that. In fact, I think it might be weird. Just kind of like do song lyrics to people in conversation.

But he goes on to say, but singing and making music to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks always and everywhere in the name of the Lord Jesus to God the Father. Just pause on that. People say, okay, always in everywhere, giving thanks. We thank God for what he's done. We praise God for who he is.

Imagine what our day would look like. Not only if the morning we let praise go up first, but if throughout the day, we would say, you know, always, giving thanks always, giving praise always to the Lord Jesus, to the glory of God the Father, even when things don't go our way. Imagine what life would look like. If I could praise God even when things don't go my way.

I think we all know the story of Job. Right. So here's Job, who's a righteous man. Here's Job who hasn't done anything wrong. And Job, whose life is incredibly blessed, right? He has a bunch of kids. He has a bunch of flocks and herds. He has a bunch of property.

He has a bunch of... He's very wealthy and very respected. And he, again, and he also loves God. He knows who God is and he loves God. But of course, here in Job chapter 1, Satan goes around and basically says, well, only reason Job blesses you, one of the reason he loves you is because you're so blessed.

He's so blessed him. Take away what he has and he'll curse you. And so God says, okay, Satan, this is very mysterious thing, but okay, Satan, you can take away. Stop, just don't kill him. And so that's what happens. All this property gets stolen. His crops and flocks get destroyed.

And even all of his children are killed. And Job's response is, in Job chapter 1, verse 21, Job's response is, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. and just pause on that for one second. How many of us could ever, ever in the midst of the worst time in our lives, could ever say, okay, no, I get it.

The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord, to actually be able to praise God in the midst of loss. But Job does. The interesting thing is, that's Job chapter 1, verse 21. Things get worse for Job. In fact, it's chapter 2,

that Satan turns his attention to Job's physical health, his emotional health. And Job is absolutely, he's broken, physically broken, by being under so much physical torment and emotional anguish. And his wife turns to him and she says, basically what maybe a lot of us would feel. She says, why don't you just curse God and die? And Job says, ah, dumb woman, don't do that. But he wants to. Well, this is the reality.

I mean, I don't know if he wants to. but he doesn't. He questions God, but he hasn't cursed God. And that's the key. Things got worse. They didn't get better. And sometimes things don't get better.

So it's not just a matter of like, oh, I'm going to praise God, you know, and then things will be all fine. You know, sometimes things don't get better. Sometimes we don't get better. So what do you do then? And I think that's something powerfully true about going back to the Psalms, going back to what the scriptures say. So Psalm 34 is the reading

for today, but Psalm 71 is another Psalm. And I love this because this is the Psalm of someone who's not going to get me better. Here's how it starts. Here's some just excerpts from Psalm 71. He says this. It starts out by saying, in you, Lord, I've taken refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness, rescue me and deliver me, turn your ear to me and save me. So good. Here's someone just like, I trust you, God. Goes on to say, deliver me my God from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of those who are evil and cruel, for you have been my hope, my sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth. For my birth, I relied upon you, and you brought me forth from my mother's womb, and I will ever praise you. Goes on to say, my mouth is filled with

your praise, declaring your splendor all the day long. But then we learn that this is not the prayer of a young person. This is the prayer of an old person. And this is not the prayer of a person who has everything going their way. This is the prayer of a person who is getting old and realizes that it's very possible, very likely, that nothing will ever get better. And he goes on to say, he says, do not cast me away when I'm old. Do not forsake me when my strength is gone. But we get the sense, reading the whole Psalm, that his, he already is old, that his strength already is gone.

And it gets worse. He says, why? For my enemies speak against me. And those who wait to kill me conspire together. They say God has forsaken him, pursue him and seize him, for no one will rescue him. And here is someone who says life isn't going to get better. People are actively trying to kill me in my old age, and I've done nothing but tried to do the right thing. But here's his response.

In the midst of all this, in the midst of people saying God's forsaken him, pursue him and sees him, for no one will rescue him. He says, as for me, I will always have hope. And he goes on to say, this is the killer line. He says, and I will praise you more and more. I'm not just going to even, even in the midst of the worst season of my life. I'm not going to just keep my average praise. I will praise you more and more. And my mouth will be filled of your righteous deeds of your saving acts all the day long.

Remember what praise is. Praise is praising God for who he is. Thanksgiving is thanking God for what he's done. So I'm going to talk about this. I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, my sovereign Lord. I'll proclaim your righteous deeds, yours alone. because since my youth, oh God, you've taught me. And to this day, I declare your marvelous deeds.

Remember, I will praise you more and more. And I'll praise you without conditions. Because even if things don't get better, I will still praise you without conditions. And that's something every one of us has to learn. So Judah, right? Judah is the fourth child of this woman named Leah. So we know any of the stories of,

of Jacob whose name becomes Israel, he falls in love with this woman named Rachel, and Rachel has a sister. And Jacob does not love this sister, Leah. Jacob loves Rachel. But because of some shenanigans, Jacob ends up marrying Leah and then Rachel, and he ends up not loving Leah, but loving Rachel. And just imagine Rachel, Imagine Leah in this situation. Here's Leah who she's unloved and she knows she's unloved. So she thinks, well, what's going to happen is, if God blesses me with a son, then my husband will love me.

And so she has a son. And his name is Rubin. And his name is Rubin because it says this in the book of Genesis. It says, because the Lord has seen my humiliation and affliction, now my husband will love me. That's why his name is Rubin. Now my husband will love me. But he doesn't love her.

and she says the second son, his name is Simeon. She name is Simeon because she says, because the Lord heard that I was despised, he's given me a son, this son also. That's Simeon's name, but Jacob doesn't love her. Then she has her third son, Levi. And Levi, she says, now this time my husband will be a companion to me,

for I've born him three sons. You can almost hear the broken heart of this woman who's saying, God, if you bless me, then I'll have the love that I long for. And every time Jacob doesn't love her, until she has Judah. Well, he doesn't start loving her then.

That's when Leah no longer has a condition. She says, I'll name this one Judah, saying, now I will praise the Lord. You go without conditions. Whether he loves me or not, now I will praise the Lord. That's the name of Judah. And that's what it is. is to have praise without conditions.

Because we know this, right? Praise goes up first. And also praise goes throughout. Here's Job. Praise goes throughout. Praise this is what we have to realize. And we praise God when we're winning. And we have to praise God when we're losing.

We have to praise God at every moment. Not because I love this moment, but because I know that he is still God and he is still in this moment. Again, we have to praise God in every moment, not because we have to love this moment, but because we know no matter what happens. He is still God.

and he is still in this moment. We have to realize the truth. The pain that I'm going through has not knocked him off his throne. The sorrow that you're going through has not removed God from his throne. The grief that you're undergoing has not removed God from his throne.

The loss that you've experienced that has not removed God from his throne. We praise him, not because this moment is just, but because he is just. We praise him, not because this moment is right, but because he is right. We praise him, not because this moment is amazing,

but because he is amazing. And praise goes up first, and praise has to last to the end. And this is the last thing. They're at the scaffolding, at the guillotine. The youngest of these sisters did something unexpected. She started singing. And it was a song of praise to God. quickly the other 15 sisters joined in

and as they stood there at the base of the scaffolding with these stairs leading up to the guillotine every one of them praised God with their last breaths the youngest one was the first one to have her head removed from her but before she mounted the scaffolding she went before her prioress right the like the superior of that group of 16 young women and she went before her and she asked her for permission

to die for Jesus and the prioress granted her permission and she mounted the scaffolding and she died with a song on her lips. And the next one asked the prioress for permission to die for Jesus. Well, all around her, these other young women were singing and praising the Lord

until one by one, the only one who was left singing, the only one left praising was the prioress. I think her name is Mother Teresa of St. Augustine And as she took step by step up that scaffolding, hers was the only voice that rang out in that square, praising God. And she laid her neck upon the guillotine. And she praised God until the very moment she was unable to praise him anymore with her voice on this earth. It was at that moment that the crowd fell silent.

Those nuns had consecrated themselves and dedicated themselves. They said, we offer our lives for the capital. Catholic Church in France, 10 days after they were executed on July 17, 1794, the reign of terror ended. And then for 230 years, it's been a long, slow march to restoration. And France isn't what it was. And this world isn't what it was. And it might never be.

But we know what we're called to do with our first breath to get to. give God praise, with our last breath, to give God praise. Because praise must go up first, and praise must be offered. Until the end.