Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 09/08/24 Nothing to Offer

Episode Date: September 7, 2024

Homily from the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time. Love the person in front of you. It is easy to walk through life and feel invisible. Like you don't matter. Like you have nothing to offer. But when we are seen by Christ, all of that has the potential to change. And then we can begin to see that we are called to love the person in front of us who has nothing to offer. Mass Readings from September 8, 2024: Isaiah 35:4-7 Psalms 146:6-10James 2:1-5 Mark 7:31-37

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 Mark, Chapter 7 verses 31 through 37. Again, Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had his speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd.

He put his finger into the man's ears, and spitting touched his tongue. Then he looked up to heaven and groaned. and said to him, Ephetha, that is, be opened. And immediately the man's ears were opened. His speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.

He ordered them not to tell anyone, but the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. They were exceedingly astonished, and they said, he has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. The gospel of the Lord.

Right. Might you have a seat. So I've mentioned this many, many times, But one of my favorite icebreaker questions is asking people what their favorite superpower would be. If you have any superpower in the world, what superpower would you choose? I don't know why I like it so much. I think because I've thought it through. That's for another time.

But the ones I expect, it always shocks me because the ones you expect, flight, of course, people say that. Teleportation is a new one, but it's very practical. I think that's good. Speed, of course, you know, super speed, that kind of. The one that shocked me when I first heard it years and years ago, I was like, was, was invisibility. It was one of those situations I was sitting with a bunch of high schoolers or college students. And many, many people said they wanted to be invisible. If they could turn invisible, they'd want to be invisible. And I don't know about me. Maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe I'm suspicious

to people. But I was like, why? Why? What do you want to get away with? It was my first thought. But there's that sense of like, that would be a superpower that many people will want to be able to be invisible. I imagine that that would be a superpower if you could turn it on and turn it off. But the reality, of course, is that in our day and age, there are many people who, that they're not invisible, but they feel invisible. There are people that were surrounded by, and they're surrounded by people, but they feel invisible. They feel alone. In fact, recently, the Surgeon General of the United States of America, he has declared that there is an epidemic of loneliness. It actually has a catastrophic effect on our, even on our physical

health. And these are people that, again, it's not that no one's around. It's not that there is, it's not like there is no one else there. It's that no one sees you or notices you. It's a lack of connection. In fact, some people experience this loneliness, the surgeon general said, to such a degree that their experience of loneliness, the physical toll it takes on them, is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Like, that's the strain on the human body. to be lonely. It goes on to say that the other consequences can be devastating, a 30% increase of risk of heart disease, loneliness, a 30% risk of stroke. In fact, in older patients, there's a 50% increase in dementia just because of loneliness. And that's not just as old people,

it gets worse because young people, the people who are most affected by this right now in our day and age are ages 15 to 27. In fact, to be ages 15 to 24, 70% of them report that they have less interaction with their friends than the people in the same age did in the early 2000s. 70% less social interaction. So it makes sense that, that, again, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who's the Surgeon General, he had said this. He said that he talked to college students and once said, I'm surrounded by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other kids here.

But I don't know. I don't feel, I feel like nobody really knows me for who I am. I feel like I can't be myself. And so, and that's just common. That's just kind of the default for so many young people that, who am I? Well, I don't know. I'm unseen. I'm unnoticed.

I'm invisible. And that leads to people, someone to believe that, you know, I don't matter. That can lead someone to believe that, like, you know, I just, I guess it's just because I have nothing to offer. And again, this is, and this is rampant, this is everywhere. So years ago, seven years ago, I think it was, that the musical, Dear Evan Hansen came out on Broadway. And I'm not, I'm old.

I don't need new music. But my friend Nick was like, you have to listen to this musical. It's so good. And I'm like, no, no, no. And so he finally got me by saying, okay, listen to this one song. It's a song called For Forever. And he gave me the context. He says, this is a song sung by a guy, a kid, a boy, who has never had a best friend

describing what it would be like to have a best friend. And so with that lens, I press play, listen to the song. I was like, oh my gosh, the whole play, the whole musical, is about this young man, Evan Hansen, and how he experiences this invisibility, how he experiences a life where I don't matter, where no one notices me, where I have nothing to offer. One of the songs is called waving through a window,

because that's how he felt, right? Just like, I'm waving through window. Everyone's on the inside, I'm on the outside. And in one of the stanzas says this, he says, you know, when we start as kids, he says, we start out with stars and our eyes. We start out by believing that we belong. But every sun doesn't rise.

And he goes on to say, and no one tells you where you went wrong. And so the consequence is, he says, step out of the sun if you keep getting burned. Like, stop trying if you keep getting burned. And I think there's too many young people, maybe old people too. That's them.

Yeah, I once believed that I mattered, but I don't believe I matter anymore. I talk to so many people on our campus, so many people in life do that's how they feel. They're unseen, they're unnoticed. They've learned that they, I don't matter. They've learned that I have nothing to offer. Just like, dear Evan Hanson, I tried.

The life is really rough. Earlier this summer, I had a chance to go to Lourdes, France, which is a massive pilgrimage spot. I think after Rome and after Israel, Lourdes is the third most traveled pilgrimage spot for Catholics. It's a remarkable place. It was, it was, yeah, amazing.

So many people came in to pray, people praying for healing, just surrounded by people who are looking for God. But the most profound thing in my heart of being in Lords was hearing the story of Bernadette Subaru, right? Bernadette of Lord. So she's the young woman, the girl to whom Mary appeared. But to hear about Bernadette's young life, She was the eldest of nine children, only four of whom survived.

She herself was just over four feet tall because she was so malnourished as a child. She was her family was so poor in Lourdes that no one would notice the Subaru family. In fact, I believe that when Mary appeared to Bernadette, the six of the family were living in a 12-foot jail cell, that stank of sewer. the six of them living in a 12-foot jail cell because her dad had gotten fired from his job and they had nothing else to do. So she was out there. She's sickly. She's malnourished.

She's uneducated. She couldn't read or write. Bernard had said that if there was a list of the least important people in Lourdes, I wouldn't have even made the list. No one would have even thought of me to put me on the list of least important people. And it was to her that Mary appeared. Later on, Bernadette, when she told everyone, she was ridiculed, she was not believed, she was mocked, she was abused in many ways. But then people came to believe, and now six million people go to lords every single year.

Bernadette herself became a nun. And she died at her early age when she was 35. And this is something I never knew. I heard Monsignor Shea, the president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, just shared this recently with me. where he said that people asked Bernadette, like, what was it like to see Mary? Like, what did she look like? And Bernadette said two things. She said, well, of course, she was beautiful.

In fact, they called her the beautiful lady. She said, of course she was beautiful. But what I remember most is that she looked at me as if I were a person. But that was her takeaway. That here is this young woman again who had been beaten up by life. That if anyone were to look at her, it would only be to look down. on her. But then when Mary appeared and she was seen, she was noticed. And what did she say? She looked at me as if I were a person. Here's a girl who has nothing to offer. But that

look, looking at her as if she were a person and changed her. And think about this, this is the gospel today. Here we have the story right of Jesus. He's traveling and he this man is brought to him who is deaf and he cannot speak. And just imagine how isolating that would be. I mean, just honestly, imagine how being unable, incapable your entire life of communicating with anyone, how isolating you have the whole world that you can't take in, a whole world you can't get out. So years ago, when I was a seminarian, I was assigned to our sister diocese. It's called St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

It's in the Caribbean. They spoke English. And one would think that, oh, what a Kush assignment. You know, amazing. It would be a pretty great place to spend your summer. And it was beautiful. and there were great people, but it was really, really difficult. And I didn't know why it was so difficult, because I'm like, it's not like the work is hard.

It's not as if I didn't feel like I was making a difference. I didn't know why it was so hard. I came back to the States, and the seminarian across the hallway from me was a man named Joseph Williams. Now, Joseph Williams is now the bishop of the auxiliary bishop of St. Paul, Minneapolis. But I remember asking Joseph about it, telling him about it, and he just come back from France. He was living with a religious community over the summer. and he said something. He said, you know, he learned French over the course of the summer.

He said, there's something about living in another country where you can't communicate as yourself that strips you of your personality. And then he said that, I thought, oh my gosh, that's what happened. Because he was speaking French. I thought, well, I'm speaking English. Of course, I'd be understood. Of course I'd be known. Of course I could communicate.

But it's two different cultures. And so, like, the things they would think were funny, I didn't get their jokes. and things that were my jokes, they didn't get my jokes. I remember how many times a day I would be called stupid. Like, you're so dumb, you're so stupid because I couldn't understand. I thought we were speaking the same language, and we were, but we were not communicating. And that was what it was to be stripped of my personality.

Like Bishop Joseph had said, he was stripped of his personality in France. Just like I can imagine, here's this man who never had a chance to communicate. He was deaf. He was unable to speak. If anyone could feel isolated. unknown, with nothing to offer. In fact, I imagine he would feel like a burden on his family, because I don't have anything to give, I'm just a burden.

Jesus takes this man and does something that he does, I don't think he does in any other miracle. He takes him apart by himself. And I always wondered why. Like, why would he take this man apart by himself? And I wonder if it's this. I wonder if it's because he knows the deeper healing that has to happen. Because there's five big healings that happen.

There's four big healings, there's four big healings that have to happen here. There's one is he heals his deafness, the man can hear. Secondly, he heals his speech impediment. He can speak. The third thing, if you caught in the gospel, is that immediately he could speak plainly, which means that there's also this miracle on top of a miracle, that he learned the language immediately

and could use his vocal cords in a way that he never had been trained to use this. But the fourth miracle is, I think, the most powerful one. Here's a man who had possibly gone his entire life without being seen, without being noticed. believing I have nothing to offer. I'm just a burden. And in that moment he is seen, in that moment he's known,

in that moment, he realizes the truth. The truth is he matters. And here's the question that I have to ask, pause on this for a second. Do you know this? I think a lot of us know the loneliness part. A lot of us know what it is to be unnoticed.

A lot of us know what it's like to feel like I have nothing to offer. But do you know what it is to be seen? In fact, do you know it is to be noticed by God? Because this is our first step. Every one of us, we have to have this first step. If we don't, we'll always be stuck in this loneliness. The first step is to allow ourselves to be seen by God.

So recently, I was talking with this man on his podcast. He was doing the interview. He's a very successful man. And he's done a lot of stuff with his life. He's Catholic his entire life. And at one point, he said, what do you think is a really valuable thing, important thing for people to know?

and I thought about it for a second and I said, well, I think it's important for people to know that it is good that they exist. I said, and I think it's important for everyone listening to this to know it's good that they exist. And then I said to him, I said, and Dan, you need to know, it's good that you exist. And then he was about to go on to the next point,

but then he kind of paused and he just stopped and he was like, oh, thank you for that, Father Wank. And I just realized that we don't all know that. We don't all know that it is good that you exist. And we don't all believe this because we think, well, I got nothing to offer. And I don't want to make this overly personal,

but I'm no different. I don't want to come across as if, like, I've got this all figured out. Like, I know all these things because that is a particular lie, this particular wound, it's a particular experience of mine. I can think of this even as a kid. My dad was a physician, right?

And he would take us to the hospital with him. He'd take us to the clinic with him, and he wanted us to be in that place where we'd be with patients because he wanted us to see what he did. And he wanted us to see, like, this is what you do. You help people. The problem is this. He would bring us on his rounds into patients' hospital rooms.

And I would stand there and I would feel so powerless. I felt so out of place. I felt like I shouldn't be here. Why? Because I'm walking into this hospital room. And it's good that the doctor's here. It's good that the nurses are here. But it's not good that I'm here.

And that's the line. and it's not good that I'm here. Why? Because I have nothing to offer. And sometimes I think that that's how we see ourselves as well. It's good that you exist. Well, really, why? I have nothing to offer.

And I have to tell you that even though this has been healed in me in a lot of ways, it's still there. Like, I have to, the way I walk into a room oftentimes with a bunch of people is I have to force myself to look up rather than just stir out my feet. I have to force myself to look at people because my default is this. My default is I shouldn't be here.

It's not good that I'm here because I don't have anything to offer. And I know this because I've seen Jesus and Jesus has seen me. I know that that's a lie. Because why? Because if I don't believe that I matter that I'm not going to look at the other person.

If I don't believe that I matter, then I'm not going to try to notice the other person. If I don't believe that I matter, I'm not going to try to see them. I'm not going to try to be in their life. Life, because why? Because, well, it doesn't matter. And it's not about being shy, not about being selfish.

It's about believing this lie that so many of us have believed. It's not good that I exist. Because it doesn't matter. Because I have nothing to offer. You know, there's a book I love. I recommend it to all of our marriage prep couples and even couples who have been married for a long time. It's called Love and Respect by a man named Emerson.

and Egricks. And in this book, there's a number of theses that he proposes. But one of his thesis is, one of the, one of the theories is that while both men and women, both husbands and wives, that we both need to be loved and respected. We both need both. He says, generally speaking, a husband would rather be respected by his wife than loved if he, if he had to rank it. And a wife would rather be loved by her husband than respected. Now again, we both want both. But a man would, man, it touches the man's heart in a unique way when he knows that he's respected by his wife and it touches the woman's heart in a unique way when she knows that she's loved by her husband.

And he says this, he says, when a couple's on the sane cycle, he calls it the sane cycle, that's, here's a woman, the wife, she feels loved by her husband, so just naturally gives him this respect and this man feels respected, so he just naturally gives his wife this love. But sometimes couples fall into what he called the insane cycle. And the insane cycle is, I don't feel respected, so I'm not going to offer you love. Or she says, well, I don't feel loved, so I'm not going to give you the respect you long for. Now, when I was meeting with couples, I'd always point this out. I talk about a bunch and resonated with a lot of them.

And one of the things I thought was, I thought, you know, the scene was this. The scene was, here's a man. I don't feel respected. So you know what? I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait until you respect me, then I'll love you. Or she's like, but don't feel loved, I'm just going to choose to wait to respect you until you love me. But in talking with more and more couples and living through life myself, I think there's something deep.

happening. I don't think it's a matter of being selfish. I don't think it's a matter of saying, well, I'm going to wait until you go first. I think there's a line and a lie that's been believed. And the lie and the lie is this. I do love you, says the husband. I do love you. But I don't think it matters to you that I love you. Here's the bride and she's like, well, no, I respect him, but he doesn't care. If I'm going to say words of respect to him, it doesn't matter to him. if I respect him. Why? Because I don't matter.

Or he says, I would give her love, but she doesn't want my love. So I have nothing to offer. Again, this is the lie that hamstrings Christians. I really believe this, that until we know, until we sit under the gaze of God and let God do what Mary did in Bernadette's life, let God do what Jesus did in this deaf and mute man's life, to take us aside and to see us, to notice us, and to truly believe that, oh my goodness,

I'm convicted by this truth, that even though it's true, and in the world, very lonely, in the world, so isolated, in the world, there are people who don't notice and people who don't care, and maybe I don't matter to them. But when it comes to God, you matter. Of course, I think a lot of times when we let Jesus see us, We show up with our reasons.

Like we either show up with our reasons, God, here's all the reasons why I don't matter. Here's all the reasons why you shouldn't love me. And so we try to short-circuit his love. Or we do the opposite. And we show up to God and we have all of our reasons why he should. God, here's all the reasons, all the things I do that make it so that I matter.

Here's all the things that I do that mean you should love me. And neither of those reasons are helpful. Neither of those reasons are true because that's just a trap. what we just need to do is we just need to be seen. St. James said it. He said, did not God choose those who are poor in this world? Did not God choose those who have nothing to offer?

Bernadette. God chose those who have nothing to offer this deaf man who couldn't speak. God chose those who had nothing to offer. All these sick people, God chooses those who have nothing to offer you and me. And that's the reality, is that when we're convinced of this, it changes us. When we're convinced that God sees us with nothing to offer,

it changes how we see people who have nothing to offer. St. James says this. He says, listen, show no partiality. We heard the reading. It said, if a man of gold rings on his fingers and fine clothes comes into your assembly

and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in. Someone who matters and someone who doesn't matter. Someone has something to offer and someone who has nothing to offer. Both these men come into your assembly and you pay attention to the one

wearing fine clothes and say, sit here, please, well to the person, the poor one, sit over there or sit at my feet. You made distinctions. Why? Because we're still playing by the rules of the world. Well, I'll notice you if you matter. I'll notice you if you have something to offer.

The wisdom of God is this. When I had nothing to offer, he noticed. When you had nothing to offer, he saw you. When we had nothing to offer him, He chose us. When you and I have nothing to offer, he loved us. What do we do with those who have nothing to offer us? Years ago, I heard the story of a Dominican priest who was in Calcutta.

He was giving a retreat to Mother Teresa and our sisters. And the Dominicans, they wear the white habit, and it's just cool. And this man was a good priest. And he preached this retreat, and he went back to his room. They had set aside for him to take a little break to rest. And he laid down in the little siesta in the middle of the afternoon. And as he laid down, he just, this horrible stench came in through his window. And so he got up and he looked out his window and right down, right below him.

He was on the first floor right below him was this man laying in the gutter with half of his side, an open wound with maggots crawling in and out of it. Just this stench. And so the priest was like, well, I'm going to shut this window because I don't want this stench to get into this room and get into my clothes. I have to have a plane to catch. I don't want to a smell on the plane. Shuts the window. Sits back down. And then he hears these two voices outside the window.

One's saying, no, no, no, you can't go out there. I'll take care of him. And the other voice, an old woman saying, no, I must. I must. And she's like, no, no, mother, go inside. Let me take care of him. And it was the voice of Mother Teresa, who was saying, no, I must do this. This is something I must do.

The priest got up and he went out and looked out the window. And he saw Mother Teresa with another sister. Mother Teresa went up to this man, bent down over him, held him, picked him up in her arms, drew him with that wide open wound with the maggots and all the smell and brought him to herself. A whole while saying, my Jesus, my Jesus. And this priest, she picks him up and takes him inside, this priest kneels down at his bed and starts crying and saying, God, what the... This is a priest who not only preachers,

like he devoted his life to serving the poor, but he didn't want to serve the man who smelled bad. And he knelt down and he started crying. He said, Jesus, why am I like this? Why can't I love like that? Why can't I see like that? Why can't I be like that? After a few moments, there was a knock at his door.

And he opened it, and there's a mother. holding this man and she said, Father, he's dying. Would you please bless him before he dies? And his Dominican priest and his white habit said, of course, and he took this man from her arms into his own own arms

and drew this man, smelly, maggotty, wounded, dying to himself, carried him to the, to not his own bed, but to a cot. blessed him, tended his wounds, and was there with him until the man died. Now he had nothing to offer. The man didn't live. The man didn't recover.

And the priest could be like you and me. We say things like, well, yeah, what does it matter? I could do that and it makes no difference because I have nothing to offer. But we know the truth. We know the truth that Mother Trees had once also said. She had said that, you know, the West is... is so poor because we're surrounded by material wealth, but we're lonely. What's that mean?

Well, it doesn't mean you have to go to Calcutta, and this is the last thing. In fact, Mother Teresa, whenever she talked to people who would say, Mother Teresa, I want to go to Calcutta too. She would tell them, she would say, stay home and find your own Calcutta. Because the truth is that we're surrounded by people who believe they don't matter. We're surrounded by people who have nothing to offer. We're surrounded by people who feel invisible. But you know that you matter.

You know that you're not invisible. You know that even when you feel like we have nothing to offer, you have something to offer. So I was listening to this Orthodox priest shared that he works at a, not a soup kitchen, he actually works at a restaurant that serves both the homeless and wealthy people. It's not a soup kitchen. It's actually a fancy restaurant that is like, tries to bring people together.

And he said, there's a man that he is seen many times named Dave. And he said, Dave lives out of his suitcase. He carries his suitcase wherever he goes. And he's partially homeless. Sometimes he's homeless. Sometimes he sleeps on the streets. And sometimes he couch surf. Sometimes he stays at the shelter.

But at one point, this Orthodox priest had sat down with Dave for lunch. And he said, by the way, Dave, I heard it was your birthday this week. happy birthday. A little while Larry gets up to go take care of some other things, and as he's passing through the restaurant, he sees Dave sitting by himself and just weeping. And so the priest stops and goes back to Dave's table and says, Dave, I'm so sorry if I said something that offended you,

I apologize. And the man looked up at the priest and he says, no, you didn't say anything that offended me. He said, you remembered my name. And you remembered my birthday. He said, I can't remember the last time someone remembered my name. I don't know if anyone's ever remembered my birthday. Here is something, here's someone who had nothing to offer.

Wasn't the man, wasn't Dave. The person who had nothing to offer was the priest. All he had to offer was he remembered Dave's name. So what do we do? We don't go to Calcutta. We find our own Calcutta. What do we do? We don't have to find Dave.

We just have to love the person in front of us. So that's the task. To notice the person in front of you. To see the person in front of you. And to love the person in front of you. Even when they have nothing to offer.