Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 10/06/19 Are You Saved? From What: Lovelessness

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

Homily from the Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. How do you know God loves you? How do you know you are saved? Answer: the sacraments. The saving work of Jesus was accomplished in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. The saving work of Jesus meets our lives and transforms them through the tangible gifts of His love: the sacraments. Mass Readings from October 6, 2019: Habbakuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4 Psalms 95:1-2, 6-92 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14 Luke 17:5-10 Download the Homily Study

So that question before mass of, who is one person that you know loves you? I thought of my mom. I know, it's adorable. But honestly, out of many people I have in my life, it's just been blessed by a lot of people who have cared for me and loved me. My mom is just, she's at the top of the list. She's incredible. And one of the reasons, you know, the second part of the question was, okay, who's one person who loves you? How do you know that they love you?

And I would say because every day, when I was living in my parents' house growing up as a kid, every morning before we got up, my mom would go into the kitchen. In the kitchen, there was like a fireplace. And my mom would make a fire before we came downstairs, and she would make us breakfast every single morning. And I thought this was normal. Like, my mom, if we were home, she'd make breakfast, lunch, and supper. If we were at school, she'd make breakfast, and then she'd make supper every single day.

And this was, I knew my mom loved me because she did that. Even when she was sick, when she was sick, she'd put out cold cereal and a gallon of milk and some bowls. Like that was when she was on an off day. And remember the first time I ever went to school and talked to some kids and they were saying something like, yeah, you know, I had Pop-Tarts this morning or I had to make my own breakfast this morning. I'm like, what, you made your own? Doesn't your mom love you? Like, it just shocked me. I was like, oh my gosh, just, no, I always thought that that was a sign of my mom's love for me.

I did not realize, honest, true story, until just like a couple years ago that my sisters had to, my oldest sisters had to tell me this. They were like, yeah, mom did that for us. She made, you know, breakfast for us every single morning. She made supper for us every single night. She cooked for us all the time. and I never knew this. My mom hates cooking. Like I mean, like hates hates cooking.

But she not only did it, even though she hated it, I had no idea. I had no clue. She hid the fact that she hated doing the things she did. And I'm like, wow, she really loves me because she did something for me without complaining, without even giving me the slightest indication that she didn't like it,

and she did it so consistently. Because that's the thing. When it comes to how do you know someone loves you, you know it either through their actions or through their present? like either because they're doing something or because they're just there either because they're acting or they're just showing up that's how we know whenever it comes to the question how do you know someone loves you it's either because they've done something they've acted or they just happen to

choose to be there like that's how we know that someone loves you and it's crazy because we realize this you know that the only way you and I've ever known love is through our bodies now you'd be like duh yeah I've a bodies. But like this is important for us to understand. Like the only way you and I have ever known anything actually is through your body. You either saw something, tasted something, all the other three senses. Like you got it into, you knew it. It was proven to you, was demonstrated to you through your body. It's one of the reasons I don't know if you heard of Gary Chapman. He has a book called The Five Love Languages. You've heard of the Five Love

Languages? Basically his theory, he popularized his theory that people have kind of like various ways that they communicate or speak love to other people in ways they receive love. So he describes names five of them, and he says, one is like quality time. That's one of the ways people really feel loved is if people just spend time. They're there. They're present. Another one is gift giving. Like some people are just really touched in their hearts by gift giving or by giving gifts.

That's how they express love. By act of service. So when you drive home and you're like, I walked into the house and my dad said, hi, welcome home. And then he walked outside and started working on your car. And you're like, he doesn't love me. Like, no, he loves you. He's loving you through the act of service. So we said quality time, gift giving, act of service.

words of affirmation. Some people just they love to hear how much you love them. And so that's the way you can express love. The fifth one is physical affection. So again we all have these different ways of communicating love. We all have these different ways of receiving love. But every single one of them happens to us through the body. Every single one of us, every single one of those things is communicated to us and proven to us by what someone did or by their very presence. So if someone asks you, are you loved? You can be able to, if the answer is yes, you can be able to say, okay, how do you know?

You can be able to point that's how I know. No, we've, this is the fourth part of a four-part series we've been doing for the last four weeks. And the series is called, Are You Saved? And so we talked about how Jesus is the Savior of the world. He's our Savior. And he saves us from sin, he saves us from death. He saves us from fatherlessness. He saves us from hopelessness.

That Jesus, in his salvation, he saves us from lifelessness. And today we're going to talk about this, that Jesus, it saves us from lovelessness. Because when someone asks you, are you loved? And then the second question, how do you know? The other question, are you saved? Is the same follow-up question. How do you know?

How do you know you're saved? Because you just, do you feel saved? Is it a matter of like kind of having the sense of like, I just kind of, I don't know, general piece? How do you know that you're saved? So if you've been coming to Alpha on Tuesday night, last week, Nikki Gumble, he's the kind of the main presenter of the Alpha Deals, he said that he can point to a specific moment. That's how he knows he was saved.

He can point to a specific moment that happened 2,000 years ago in Israel. And he said, how do I know I'm saved? Because what Jesus did on the cross, rising from the dead. That's how I know I'm saved. Like, he point to a specific event that happened in history, and that's how I know I'm saved. And I'm like, that's great answer because that's true, right? Jesus is the source of our salvation. He is the source of every grace. He is this, that's what caused our salvation to be possible. But have you ever asked the question, how did what he did 2,000 years ago, halfway around the world?

How does that have anything to do with you right now? Because, yes, he saved the world, 2,000 years ago, half a world away. How does that get to you? How does that have anything? How does it make any difference in your life here and now? That's what happened then and there. how does that translate and transform anything here and now? You ever ask that question?

Me too. The answer is through the Holy Spirit. So what the Holy Spirit does is the Holy Spirit makes actual what Jesus made possible. And how He does that, how the Holy Spirit does that, is the big answer is through the sacraments. That the sacraments, that have been given to us, sacraments, they make the past saving action Jesus present in our lives right now. In fact, I would say this, too, this might sound really bold, but this is the absolute truth. The sacraments are necessary for salvation. The sacraments, in order for what Jesus did 2,000 years ago, to have any difference, make any difference

in your life and my life right now, we need the sacraments. The sacraments make present what Jesus had done in the past for every single one of us. Because I think we could say, we go back to even how Jesus saved the world. Like how God saved the world. You could say like how did God save the world? Well he could have just, he's God. He could have just ever do this way with your brothers and sisters when you get up and leave the room and you call your chair saved? Like that chair is saved. It's mine. Don't, you can't take it. God, he can do anything. He could have just called the world saved. He just said saved mine. And that would have been it. How did he do it? He took on a body and he lived in that body. He suffered in that body.

He died, rose and ascended to heaven in that body. And we're saved through his body. Now how do you experience his salvation? Through your body too. Not just in their mind. time you had a real transformational event that happened only in your mind. Never. What translate what Jesus did a thousand years ago to your life right now is the sacraments. And someone can say, well, yeah, but Father, I believe. And I'd say, great, that's really, really good. But here's the deal. Loving another person doesn't make you married to them. Really, really, really loving another person doesn't make you married to them. Loving another person and really feeling like you're married doesn't make you married to that person. What makes you married to that person?

marrying that person. That's what does it. That's what makes you married is actually going through the motion of marrying them. And this is why in the second reading, 2 Timothy chapter 1, St. Paul writes to Timothy and he says, Timothy, fan into flame

the gift of the spirit that you were given. How? Through the imposition of my hands. What St. Paul is describing is Timothy, remember the day you were ordained and I made you into a priest of God. Fan into flame that gift that I gave you through the imposition of my hands,

body to body. Because how do you know that you're a priest Timothy, I laid my hands on you. You guys, June 6, 2003. That's the day I was made a priest. And I wasn't made a priest because I really felt it that day. I was made a priest because I was like, you know what? I think my schooling is done. I'm going to do this thing now. What happened was the bishop called me forward and then he laid hands on me. I can point to a specific day and say that was the day I was made a priest, just like St. Paul's writing to Timothy and saying, remember that day, I laid hands on you and you became a priest. So when were you saved?

I was saved on March 1st, 1975, in Bloomington, Minnesota. That's the day I was baptized. So the day you were baptized is the day you were saved. And I can point to a very specific moment. And that moment, what happened 2,000 years ago happened to me. What Jesus made possible 2,000 years ago was actually made in me at that moment because the sacraments are necessary for salvation. Again, this isn't just me saying this.

This is actually what Jesus said. If you look at John chapter 3, what does Jesus say? He says, unless you're born again of water and the Spirit, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven. Unless you're baptized, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven. In the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 2, Peter goes out and he preaches, at Pentecost Day, preaches to 3,000 people, and they're cut to the heart and they're like, oh my gosh, and they ask the question, what must we do to be saved? And he says, just have a warm feeling.

No, St. Peter says, repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. What must we do to be saved? Repent and be baptized. In fact, St. Peter, in 1. Peter, chapter 3, verse 21, What does he say? He says, baptism saves you now. So when were you saved? At your baptism. How do you know? Because you were baptized. This is the crazy thing. The Holy Spirit, working through the sacraments,

makes the son's past actions present. What he made possible, they make actual. Okay, at this point, if you remember back three weeks, four weeks ago, I talked about how, no, no, it was 15 or 16. I didn't like church. I didn't like the Lord much until about 15 or 16. I had a conversion experience. So you could look at me and say, Father, it sounded like earlier that you said you were saved

when you were 15 or 16 years old. No. I had an awareness. The baptism that I was brought into became alive in that moment. But it all goes back to that baptism. It all goes back to March 1st, 1975. It all comes from the fact that

when you were baptized, you were actually transformed. In fact, Dr. Michael Barber, He wrote this book called Salvation, What Every Catholic Should Know. It's kind of what we base this whole series off of. He says, you know, when you get baptized, it actually changes things, that God does what he declares. When God declared you his daughter, when God declared you his son, it actually happened.

You became a new creation. In fact, you're a different species. Like if you're baptized, you're a different kind of human being. Like true thing, true reality. St. Peter says, he says, when you're baptized, you became partakers in the divine nature. St. Paul says, you become a new creation, which means homoestine And then homo sapien baptismal den. Like it's just, oh, you're a whole different thing.

Because now you have your same soul, your same spirit, but it's been divinized. You've been transformed. Because the sacraments aren't merely things. They're God's actions in this world. And if you say, I don't know if I'm loved, just look to the sacraments. How do you know you're loved? Because the sacraments are God's actions, and the sacraments are God's present in a presence in a particular way.

But it's a crazy thing, and it's just this frustrating thing is so often we couldn't care less. And the frustrating thing is so often we couldn't we're just like the Israelites. And do you remember the story of how the Jews were set free from slavery in Egypt? They're led through the Red Sea that brought into the wilderness and they're like, we're so hungry, we're going to die of hunger out here in the wilderness. And so God says, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to bring you bread from heaven. I'll give it to you every single day.

So what happens is the Israelites, they walk out of their tents and they see this thing on the ground and they say, what is this? And actually that's, they call it manna, right? oh manna actually means what is this. They're like, we didn't come with anything more clever. It's called like a what you might call it bar. It's like, what is this? Let's just call it, what is this?

So every morning for 40 years they ate what is this? You think they would have come up with something better, you know? It's kind of frustrating. But they made everything out of this, manna. They had made banana bread. They made manacati. They had, only, but what happens is this morning, no one laughed at that.

And so I just really appreciate it. Thank you. but the crazy thing is after a little bit, not even after a long time. These are like, they started to complain. They started to be like, what the heck? Why do we have to eat this bread from heaven? Why do we have to eat this man? Why do we have to eat this?

What is it? You know, think about how crazy that is. Because first of all, like, okay, dude, this thing is keeping you alive. This is the only thing that's between you and starvation, absolute death. And you're complaining about this. Number two, it's a free gift from God. He doesn't have to give you this. He doesn't have to give you this at all.

And you're complaining about it. And the third thing is, every morning you walk out of your tent and you see this bred from heaven on the ground, which is what? It's a sign that God loves you. You want proof that God loves you. You walk out of your tent every morning. God, God, he's faithful.

He's not abandoned me. He's present. He loves me. How do I know God loves me? It's proof. He's here and he's acting. And they couldn't care less. They saw this gift as an imposition.

They saw this gift as a burden. He used to read that story and think, man, that's crazy. Who would ever think that? And I realized that's me. That God keeps proving his love again and again. And I see this gift, this proof as an imposition as a burden. Remember, the sacraments are necessary for salvation.

You're the way that God communicates his salvation to us. We think about the new bread from heaven, you know, John chapter 6. in John chapter 6 Jesus says he says your ancestors ate manna bread from heaven in the desert but I'm going to give you the true bread that comes down from heaven because they say okay great send us this true bread from heaven

and he says this bread from heaven is my flesh for the life of the world and then he goes on to this next piece he says and unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you do not have life within you again the sacraments are necessary for salvation unless you eat my flesh during my blood you will not live forever. No entrance into heaven. This gift from God, what do we think? Man, I have to go to Mass again on a Sunday. What the heck? This gift from God, his very life that gives us eternal life,

has become a burden. For most of us, it's an imposition. And that's one of the things that's just like, I don't know what I have to say. It's one thing that deeply grieves me is how indifferent, all of us can be to the life of grace, how indifferent all of us can be to this offer of salvation in the sacraments. Because in so many ways, it's basically indifference to love. It's wandering through this world going, doesn't anyone love me? And here's God just like banging on a drum and saying,

absolutely I do. Here is proof. But I think, I don't know, I can't blame anyone for that because I think so many of us are so hungry we've forgotten. We're so, we're so hungry that we forgot. There's actually food for us. And we're so parched and thirsty that we forgot that actually he's given us something to drink. I think so many of us are so wounded and so broken that we can't see that God wants to save us and heal us and forgive us in confession.

So we put up all walls and I even hear this. I hear people thinking of this. Like when I say the sacraments are necessary for salvation, we put up walls and start defending ourselves and saying, well, wait, wait, what about other people? Like what about people who didn't get baptized? What about them? What about someone who's not Catholic and they can't receive Holy Communion? What about someone who's not Catholic and they don't get to go to confession?

What about them? We try to put those walls up so that we don't have to face the fact that they're necessary for us. Someone even can say, like, well, you, Father, you know, I read in the Bible, it says that the good thief, he was on the cross, and Jesus said he was going to be with him in paradise, and he was baptized on the cross, so, like, is that possible?

Here's what the church teaches about this. The church teaches that God has bound himself to his sacraments. Meaning every time his sacrament happens, he has promised he will be there. He has bound himself to his sacraments, but he's not bound by his sacraments. So can he save anyone, even if they're not baptized? Yes, he is God. He's still God.

He's bound himself to his sacraments, not bound by his sacraments. So he can save someone even if they don't go to confession. Yes, he can do that. He is God. And then they hear people going, oh, then I'll take that one. Like, I want that, that's the extraordinary way. And I'll take the extraordinary way. Why? Because this gift of love has been wasted on us. And again, we see it as a burden.

But the crazy, the reality is we can meditate on Jesus' life and his redemption by reading the Bible and praying about that. That's so good. And we can hope and trust in it. That's really good. Do that. Please do that. But we can also encounter it, the very saving action of Jesus in the sacraments. Where he saves us from a life of lovelessness.

Because here's the thing, God wants you to know it, that you're loved. He wants you to live this. He doesn't want you to go through another day doubting the fact that he loves you and is the last thing. Again, God wants you to know it. He wants you to live in contact with this on a daily basis. I was talking to this man, he, a little while back,

he was raised Catholic, but at some point he just decided he was leaving the Catholic Church and he went to a different church and he was there for a long time and he was coming back. He was coming back home, coming back home to the Catholic Church and it was really, really great. At one point, he went to confession and it was a big moment. He told me I could tell you this.

It happened after confession. He said, you know, Father, for all those years when I was away from the Catholic Church, when I knew I had sin and I wanted to be forgiven, here's what I would do. He said, I would go into my room, and he's a music guy, he's a musician. So he'd go into my room and I'd play all these songs

that made me feel sad. Made me feel sad for my sins. I'd convicted me of my sins. I'd play those songs until I felt like I felt sad enough. And then I switch it to songs that promised God's mercy and promised hope and promised his forgiveness and his release and his healing. And I switched over those songs and I'd pray with them until I felt like I was forgiven. So at first I made myself feel sad and then I made myself feel forgiven.

And then that was how I did it. He said, but I went to confession here tonight. And I said, honestly, Father, I didn't really feel anything. But I know I'm forgiven. I know I'm forgiven. Because I can point to that sacrament and say, Jesus was there. he saved me again. God wants to save you.

He wants to save you from fatherlessness. He wants to save you from hopelessness. Jesus wants to save you from lifelessness, and he wants to save you from lovelessness. And so he gives us the chakraments as the proof that he loves us. They are his actions in the world. They are his presence in the world. He wants to save you.

Question, do you want to be saved? He wants to love you. in the sacraments. And the only question is, do you want him to love you?