Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 09/22/24 Ordinary Great Things

Episode Date: September 21, 2024

Homily from the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Not all ambition is bad. Every good thing that we have in our lives we most likely have because an individual (or group of individuals) wanted to do something great. Jesus warns us of the dangers of wanting to be first. James warns us about selfish ambition. But is every desire to be great or to do great things wrong? Mass Readings from September 22, 2024: Wisdom 2:12, 17-20 Psalms 54:3-6 and 8James 3:16—4:3 Mark 9:30-37

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.

He reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark, chapter 9 verses 30 through 37. Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to know about it. He was teaching his disciples and telling them, the son of man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him. And three days after his death, the son of man will rise. But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him.

They came to Copernum, and once inside the house, he began to ask them, what were you arguing about along the way? But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way, who was the greatest. Then he sat down, called the 12 and said to them, If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be last of all and the servant of all. Taking a child, he placed it in their midst and putting his arms around it, he said to them, whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.

and whoever receives me, receives not me, but the one who sent me. The gospel of the Lord. Wait you'd have a seat. I have this list of what things that, like, what do these things have in common? What does your iPhone, your car, what do, what does the discovery of north, central, and South America, what does indoor plumbing, what does the transcontinental railroad, what does your hometown all have in common? I would say that one thing that all of those things have in common is every one of them

was established or invented or discovered or built by someone with ambition. I mean, I think everything from the iPhone, right? There's someone with ambition who said, I see what's in front of me. I can see something more. The transcontinental railroad. Here is this people are driving across Oregon Trail. Everyone's dying with the wagons. And so they said, let's have a railroad that goes across here.

And that was established by a person with ambition. The people who discovered the new world, whether that be the Vikings originally, right, the Norwegian people. Or I guess even the Native Americans who came across the Beringer. straight, then the Vikings, then the Europeans, all of those people who came to this continent, these continents for the first time, they were people of ambition, the fact that we have modern medicine, the fact that we have the ability to transplant organs, all of that is because of people with ambition. Because there's a people who wanted to do something great. People wanted to do great things. And so you have this railroad, because you have your vehicle.

Because why? Because someone said, I want to create a new vehicle or create a way to assemble this vehicle, I want to do great things. I have ambition. See, the reality is every one of us is the recipient of blessings that come to us from people who have had ambition, that come to us from people who said, I want to do something great, I want to be great, I want to do great things. So we have to acknowledge right from the start that ambition is good. Let's clarify that. We have to acknowledge right from the start that admission can be good because we hear in the gospel today, not only what true ambition should look like, but we hear in the second reading today to beware of selfish ambition, because that's the key. The key is not ambition. The danger is not

ambition. Ambition is a great thing. The danger is selfish ambition. Why? Because selfish ambition is the kind of thing that ruins a life. Let's look at the Gospels again. Let's hear the apostles. Here are all 12 of them, apparently all 12 of them, because they're arguing, doesn't say only a few of them. They were arguing among themselves, who is the greatest. Every one of them is gunning for greatness. Every one of them wants to be great. Everyone, one of them we imagine wants to do great things. But there's a difference between excellence and selfish ambition. There's a difference between ambition and selfish ambition. Why? Not only because you have the word selfish and we're called to transcend selfishness, but because selfish ambition is not good for us.

I'm going to say that again. Ambition could be great. can be, the desire to be great to do great things, can be good. But selfish ambition is not good for us. Why? Because selfish ambition is driven by self-advancement, and so it's marked all along the way by self-protection. We see it in the Gospels, right? Twice the apostles are silent.

In the first case, right, they don't understand what Jesus is saying about his prediction of his passion, and they don't understand, but no one dared to ask him. Think about all the times, then you've been afraid to ask the question. Why? Because I'm afraid, because if I say something, if I ask the question,

I'm going to reveal my ignorance. So this is, my silence is self-protection. Later on, he says, what were you arguing about? What were you discussing along the way? And they all know that they were fighting about who was the greatest.

So they don't tell. Why? Because they're afraid. That would reveal their interest. It would reveal the thing that they were most interested in. To be able to realize this, so often,

And if we're driven by selfish ambition, that is marked by self-protection, and we're afraid. We're afraid of revealing our ignorance, or we're afraid of revealing what we really care about. We're afraid of revealing our interest. Because if you're driven, if I'm driven by selfish ambition, I can't reveal. It's one of the reasons why a lot of our students, when they graduate, one of the things that they'll say when they get their first job or not just necessarily their first job, but the first job with a lot of responsibilities is they'll say, I have this thing that's been termed imposter syndrome, right? That sense at some point someone said, hey, you have the capacity, you have the capability,

you're competent, and so here's the job. And yet here I am, I'm just me. And so what I need to do is what I feel like I need to do, as I need to protect my image. I have this imposter syndrome. And so I can't ask a question because that would reveal my ignorance. I can't say what I really think was that would reveal my interest it would reveal me.

And so I find myself in this place of self-protection. It's not a good place. Because why, I think a lot of times this selfish ambition is driven by a desire for admiration. It's a question I like to ask people. It's just kind of one of those discussion questions, one of those kind of questions to ponder. And the question is this, would you rather?

It's a would you rather question. And the question is, would you rather be admired or loved? because there's a difference. They can, some ways, intersect a little bit. But there's a big difference between being admired and love the temptation to think that they're the same. Why? Because, well, if someone's admired, then there's positive thoughts.

If someone's love, there's positive thoughts. You're positive towards a person that you admire. You're positive towards a person that you love. But the reality is, if I'm merely going to be admired, if you're merely going to be admired, that means that we admire things from a distance. we love things up close. We admire things. We admire the outside of a thing.

We admire the image of a thing. We admire the idea of a person. So I can admire their accomplishments. I can admire what they've done. I can admire what they said. But I'm going to love someone. Again, we admire from a distance, but we have to love up close. We admire the outside.

But to love someone, we have to at some point get to the inside. That we can admire the idea of a person, but you can only actually love a person. And so if I'm going to actually say, I can let go of being admired for the risk of being loved, that means I have to allow a person to get close. You have to allow a person to see you off your white horse.

You have to allow a person to see your flaws. In fact, whenever I do marriage prep, one of my favorite questions is it's a statement and both couples have to say agree, disagree, or uncertain. And the statement is, my future spouse has certain behaviors and habits that sometimes annoy me. And the reason I like it a lot is because the whole point of the question, the preferred answer is yes. The preferred answer is agree. My future spouse has certain behaviors or habits that sometimes annoy me.

It's a fun thing that I like talking about it because they're not talking about me. They're talking about each other. One of the reasons why this is such a critical question and response should be agree is because you should have dated long enough and you should have trusted each other deeply enough that you're willing to actually let them see your flaws. You actually spend enough time with each other that you're actually willing to actually let go of being admired for the sake of being loved.

That you're actually willing to be annoying or love someone who does things that are annoying rather than keep your distance and keep them on that white horse. In order to be loved, we have to sacrifice being admired. In order to be loved, we actually let someone see and know us. The alternative, of course, with selfish ambition is, no, I just want to be admired. And so my life is self-protection and then my life becomes image management.

Because you admire the outside, you admire the image, you admire the idea of the person, you can only love the person. But if I'm not letting them know who I am, then the rest of my life becomes impression management. What's the impression that I'm making on them? What do they think of me right now? And it becomes a trap because there's all this holistic, of things that they don't have access to.

The whole list of things that they can't see. Why? Because I prefer it to be admired. But to be loved means that you've allowed someone access. So one of the reasons, again, what Jesus and James are saying that this selfish ambition is a trap. Why? Because self-protection is a trap. one of the markers of as a selfish ambition is self-protection,

but another marker of selfish ambition is self-preoccupation, which is another recipe for unhappiness. In fact, there was a psychologist who talked about the more people are preoccupied with themselves, the more miserable they are. This is what he said. He said, the more you think about yourself, the more unhappy you are.

He goes, and this is such a striking phenomenon that if you look at this statistically, there's almost no difference between self-conscious thoughts, thoughts that involve I, for example, and suffering from the ravages of negative emotion. Almost no difference between self-conscious thoughts or self-preoccupation and suffering from the ravages of negative emotion like depression. So this obsessive self-centeredness, he says,

just makes all of that suffering so much worse. In fact, you've gone on to say that self-consciousness is literally a facet of trace neuroticism that depressed and psychotic people use much more self-referential. language. Selfish ambition is a trap. Again, ambition, great. Did you want it, to desire to do great things? Great. To desire to be great. Wonderful. But selfish ambition is a trap. I will say, though, again, go back to this. The desire to be great, the desire to do great things, that should be normal for Christians. Let's go back to this. The desire to be great. The desire to do great things should be normal for Christians, for disciples of Jesus. But we have to do that.

differently. Like to do great things, but to do them differently. Jesus even makes the point. He says, okay, so to be great, the first must be the last of all, the servant of all. The idea that you can actually strive for greatness, to have a great capacity for ambition, to do great things freely. In fact, so C.S. Lewis, I've been quoting him a lot lately. C.S. Lewis in his book, The Screw tape letters. If you know anything about the screwtap letters, it's letters from a senior tempter, senior demon to his, his, his, his, his nephew, a junior tempter. And at one point, screw tape is writing to his nephew, Wormwood,

and he's describing what humility looks like. And he says, the enemy, the enemy is God in this case, because he's the devil. And he says, the enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world and know it to be the best and rejoice in the fact without being any more or less glad at having done it than he would if it had been done by someone else.

Think about that. The enemy, in this case, God, our father in heaven wants us to be in a state of mind where we can design the best cathedral in the world. And we know it's the best cathedral in the world. He actually built the best cathedral in the world and we rejoice in that fact. But we rejoice in it with the same degree of joy as if someone else had built it. To be able to walk into the cathedral you built or the cathedral built by someone else and take as much joy in both.

He was on to say, the enemy wants him in the end. Again, God wants us in the end to be so free to. from any bias in our own favor, that we can rejoice in our own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor's talents, or in the sunrise, or an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each of us in the long run to be able to recognize that all creatures, even ourselves, as glorious and excellent things. Ambition. The desire to be great. The desire to do great things has marked the symbols of Jesus. I mean, I just was looking over, I've been thinking about the lives of the saints that I've always admired. So St. Francis of Assisi. I mean, you guess, humble guy, right? Super humble,

joyful guy. Ambitious. I don't know if you realize how ambitious St. Francis of Assisi was. So I think he died in like 1222 at the age of 44. You realize that when St. Francis of Assisi died at the age of 44, there were over 5,000 men, only men. There were a bunch of women, too, but 5,000 men who committed to a life of poverty, chastity, obedience based off his model. Now, this isn't just people who became Christians. People who became Catholic because of St. Francis' example. But because of his example, they literally gave away all of their possessions, made vows of poverty, of chastity, and of obedience for the rest of their lives based off his example. I mean, that is someone who's done great things. In our country, there's a woman here, her name is

St. Catherine Drexel. St. Catherine Drexel, I mean, she started off pretty, pretty fortunate. She was pretty privileged growing up. Her grandfather started J.P. Morgan Bank with guy named J.P. Morgan. Her uncle founded Drexel University. When her parents died, she and her two sisters, they used their wealth to basically transform the face of the United States. She founded a religious community. This young woman, Catherine Drexel, founded a religious community, I think starting out with maybe 15 other women. But this religious community did so much incredible good. She founded a system of Catholic schools for black people in this country in more than 13 states. When no one else was educating black people in our country,

St. Catherine Drexel was. 40 different mission centers, 23 rural schools. St. Catherine also not only had black people in her heart that she wanted to care from, she knew realizing they're made in God's image and likeness and loved them. Also Native Americans here in this country, who she had seen were being treated unfairly as well. She founded, I think it was something like 60, 50 missions for Native Americans, 16 other schools. It was remarkable what she did. And she did that because she had ambition. Because she wanted to do great things.

She wanted to be great. In our diocese, there's a man his name was Monsignor Joseph Boo. Don't be too scared. It's Buhh. Monseer Joseph Boo. He came to this country from Slovenia. And in this diocese, he had a massive heart for the Native Americans and for immigrants who had come to our diocese here in Duluth.

Not only did he translate and invent essentialization. the written language of the original people who are here. But in the course of his life, he founded over 57 different parishes in our diocese, including my home parish. Now, this is someone who is driven to do great things, and he actually, in fact, did great things. Remarkable.

If you have ambition, if you're driven to do great things, we realize that maybe like a St. Francis Vassisi or St. Catherine Drexel or Monsignor Boo, Maybe we'll accomplish those things. But maybe your life and my life will be marked by ordinary great things. What are ordinary great things? Ordinary great things are the things that might not involve establishing numerous schools to take care of people who wouldn't be taken care of.

Maybe ordinary great things wouldn't necessarily be founding a religious community or establishing 57 parishes in the Diocese for the Luth. Maybe ordinary great things is loving the person right next to you are loving the person in front of you. But to do that ambitiously, we are all called to live with ambition. Not selfish ambition. That is self-protection and self-preoccupation.

But this desire to be great, the desire to do great things. Last C.S. Lewis reference in the book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Louis is being toured through the outskirts of heaven. And at one point, he comes upon this parade of animals and of young men and young women and old men and old women all centered around this one woman.

And Lewis describes this parade that's rejoicing and singing and just all of this joy surrounding this one woman as she walks through this forest. And Lewis turns to his guide and he says, is that, is she, like meaning is that Mary? Because you'd think that all of the praise, all the glory, all the holiness, that joy that's coming off of this person would be, that must be married. And his guy looks at him and says, oh, no, no, no. Her name is Sarah Smith.

She's living in Golders Green. Like, well, what'd she do? Well, and he describes, like, well, she says, essentially she loved her husband well. And every young man or boy and met her became her son. Even if it was the only boy that, only the boy brought the meat to her back door.

Every girl that she met became her daughter. He goes on to say all the animals, like treated all the animals like they were hers as well. That love that she had, she did ordinary great things. And just doing ordinary great things again and again and again make an ordinary but great life. I think a lot of us are called to that exact thing. And the question we have to ask and answer is, are we content with that? Are we content with having an ordinary great life? There's an incredible book.

It's a play called Man for All Seasons about St. Thomas More. And at one point, there's this young man named Richard Rich, and Richard wants to be, he wants to be important. He has selfish ambition. And he comes to Thomas Moore, who is the Lord Chancellor of England, and asks him for some kind of, like, some kind of post, like recommend me for some kind of job that he can, Richard Rich can achieve his goal, his goal of being important, his goal of being great. and Thomas Moore looks at him and says, well, Richard, I think you could be a great teacher.

Maybe even a great one. He'd be a good teacher, even a great one. Richard Rich looks at him and says, well, so what? If I were, who would know it? Remember, there's a difference between ambition and selfish ambition. Richard Rich had selfish ambition. And Thomas Moore said, well, why not be a teacher? You'd be a fine teacher, perhaps even a great one.

who would know it? Well, you would. Your pupils would. God would. That's not a bad public. Every one of us is called to cultivate a spirit of ambition. Every one of us is called to be great. Every one of us is called to do great things, even if they're merely ordinary great things. But we do all those things free from self-protection, free from self-protection, free from self-pure. preoccupation and free from selfish ambition. Because it's actually only then that we're free to be great. It's only then that we're free to do great things. And it is only then that we're free to live lives that are marked by ordinary great things.