Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 10/25/20 Roadmap: Reclaimed and Repurposed

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

Homily from the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Holiness isn’t always changing your what as much as changing your why. Our lives have been reclaimed by Christ and we have become a new creation. Because of this, every moment of our lives can be lived with and for a new purpose. Every moment can be repurposed to be a sacrament, and sacrifice, and an act of surrender. Mass Readings from October 25, 2020: Exodus 22:20-26 Psalms 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51/dt>1 Thessalonians 1:5-10 Matthew 22:34-40 Download the Homily Study

So I am sure that many of you, maybe not all of you, I'm sure a lot of you have, sorry, let me ask the question. Are you all familiar with like the DIY shows? Like we know the home renovation shows like I mean obviously we know all of our all of our favorite Chip and Joanna. We know fixer upper number one, whatever, but there's also like there's there's so many. I don't know if you've ever like looked them up because I was thinking about this and I'm like I need to research this. There are so many fixer upper type shows or DIY shows. There's not only as we said fixer upper, there's good bones. There's like a whole series of

crashers. So there's yard crashers, there's kitchen crasers, there's bath crashers, or people crash into their bathroom or whatever, and they fix it up. There's actually this whole series of these kind of shows that are totally based off of puns. Like even Good Bones, it's kind of based off of a pun. But you have rehab addicts. Like, okay, rehab, I get it, addict, uh-huh. You have the Amish Renogades, which I think is funny. There's Garage Mahal. And there's also like the celebrity kind of DIY things.

I don't know if you've remember the guy Bronson Pinchot. There was his old sitcom back in the 80s called Perfect Strangers, and he was cousin Belke. He has his own show. Why? I don't know. But he has it. There was when William Shatner was still alive, there was a Shatner project. Vanilla Ice has more than one DIY show, which blows my mind.

Like what it could. You might believe what you want about vanilla ice. That guy, he had, he staying alive. It's amazing. It's incredible. There's even the combination of celebrity and puns. So if you know Hall & Oates, the band, Hall & Oates, there's Daryl Hall, and he has a renovation show or DIY show called Daryl's Restoration Overhaul.

Like, okay, great. But regardless, these DIY shows, they're almost always, they do this thing. They do two things. They reclaim. They take what some people don't want. Someone's trash, what is done with, and they reclaim it. And then they'll do this. They'll repurpose it, right?

So they reclaim what people think is trash, and they'll repurpose it for some other purpose. In fact, I have a friend, his name's Matt, his wife, Candice. They have a DIY, like, YouTube channel. It's called DIY gangsters, and they do it with their little kids, so they're not super gangster, but they are super creative. I saw them take this. It was a door, and they completely reclaimed it and repurposed it

to be this super cool table. And again, that's a repurposed. Doors aren't meant to be tables, but they reclaimed and repurposed this. They actually, they took, they went to Nordstrom, as was closing, this one store was closing, and they had all these pegboard display cases. They took them and they repurposed them as a super cool, funky kind of bookshelf. Actually, if you've ever been to the Newman House in the basement, there's this couple from town named Mike and Anna, and Mike and Anna found some driftwood years ago.

And they basically, they dried it out and then shalak the heck out of it and they made it into that they reclaimed it and repurposed it as that bar that's kind of like along the wall that students can go and just kind of do homework at. That's the whole point, right? When you do those projects, it's all about these two things, about reclaiming and repurposing. So last week we started this new series called Roadmap, and the foundational idea behind this new series,

we're going to follow up for the next, I don't know, five weeks or so, is the foundational idea behind this whole thing is that you've been made on purpose. Like you've actually been created, you're not an accident, that God made you on purpose. So we can either live on purpose or we can live off purpose. And the purpose God made you for, the what he made you for is to be a saint.

Because we know that, right, the what that we live for has to be big enough. Like, the what we live for has to be big enough to be worth giving your entire life for. Like, the what that you have, like the purpose, the what has to be big enough for you to give everything for. But you also, we also have to have a plan. Like if that's the what, we need to have a how. That's why St. Francis de Sales was kind of our guide throughout the course of this whole series. One of the things he said is he said, the Christian life requires strategy.

Because I can have a what, but I have no idea how to get there. It's so important. The Christian life requires strategy because, again, his foundational idea is to be a saint. You simply be who you are and be that well. So last week, just review. Last week we said, okay, now we have a what, to be a saint, to be who you are and be that well. We need to have a plan.

We need to have a how. But before the how, we need to know who we are, because identity comes before everything else. Because if I don't have, I don't know that, if you don't know that you actually have been consecrated and made to be a child of God, Like that God already loves you, that he is already your dad, that Jesus Christ is already, he already loves you. Again, I'll say that again, that you are someone who is loved by God.

Then what happens is the Christian life or like the whole plan, the whole how, is just a bunch of hopes to jump through. Like without knowing who you truly are, that you already are loved by God, then becoming a saint is just like, hey, check these boxes and be a saint. But St. Francis de Sales, he said, actually, that's what you call false devotion. And he contrasted true devotion versus false devotion. He said sometimes we think that true holiness or true devotion is three things. We think it's either disciplinary acts, like I fast a lot or I kind of do penance and stuff, or we think that it is charitable acts. Like I do a lot of good stuff or we think that it's spiritual acts.

Like I pray a lot. And yet obviously those three kind of things, charitable acts and spiritual acts and discipline, there's a part of the Christian life, but he says if that's all one does, if that's all we do, it stays on the surface and we're just checking boxes. One of the things that Francis DeSalle says, if you actually are going to be the saint, be who you are and be at well, we have to actually come from, it has to come from the heart. It can't just be, it can't just be jumped through hoop,

it can't just be checked the box. It has to come from the heart. In fact, Sam Rances de Sales, third quote of this homily, St. Francis de Sales, he once said, he said, whoever has won the man's heart has won the whole man. Whoever has won the person's heart has won the whole person. just make it personal. Whoever has won your heart has won you entirely. And I think that's one of the reasons why y'all chose to be here on a Sunday morning. It's because what Jesus has done has won your

heart somehow. Because what God has done for you has in some way won your heart so you're like, I'm going to make the decision that not everybody on campus is making right now, but you're going to make this decision to say, actually, he has won my heart. And so I need to respond. Why? Because you've been claimed. When you met him, you became in some way, to some degree, convinced of his unstoppable and unconditional love for you.

To some degree, I mean, maybe not completely, maybe just the beginning, maybe somewhere in the middle, but you've become convinced to some degree of his unstoppable and unconditional love for you, that you know this is true, that you have been claimed. You've been reclaimed by God himself, but you've been reclaimed by love. and because you've been reclaimed, you've been given a new life. You've become a new who, and he's given you a new why. And that's what I want to talk about today, is that new why, to be repurposed. You know, there's an author and a speaker.

His name is Simon Sinek. I don't know if you've ever heard of Simon Sinek. He wrote a book and gave a talk called Start with Why. And one of the things he talks about is how a lot of us, we live our lives, we run our businesses, we do our stuff, and we start with what? Like, here's what I do, and then we go to how. Here's how I do it, and then maybe we go to the why. We do this.

So even, like, the question before Mass is like, say, what do you do? Like, what's your job? What's your major? What's your thing? How do you do it? You can ask the question, you're like, I know how I do it, but, like, the question, why? Why did you choose that major? Why did you choose Duluth?

Why did you choose the job you're in right now? Almost all of us know what. Some of us know how. Very few of us know why. And Simon Sinek points out, he's like, I just realize that the people who live like great lives, the businesses who have like great businesses, the people who like impact their world, they don't start with what? And he gives the example of Apple computers. And he says, I'll give the example of Apple because everyone knows them and they're easy to understand.

He says Apple could start with what. And they could say, we make great electronics. We make great computers. How? He says, we design those that are simple to use, the beautifully designed, intuitive, user-friendly. Do you want to buy one? That's them starting with what? what and then telling you how they do it. Do you want to buy? And that would be kind of

unimpressive. And they would not be able to charge us four times the amount that everyone else charges for us to buy Apple products. He says, Apple didn't start with what? And every great law firm, we say, we're a law firm, that's what we are. How are we law firm? We work really hard and we have really great clients. Like, do you want to hire us? Well, no. What do we have? We have cars. How are they? Well, they have leather seats and they have all the drive. Want to buy one? I don't know. It's unimpressive. But if you start with why. Something, or maybe everything, changes. So Apple, they start with why.

And Apple says something like this, they lead with why. They say, everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge, the how we challenge the status quo is by making our products simple to use, beautifully designed, intuitive, and user-friendly. You want to buy one. You realize when you buy Apple products, you're not just buying the electronics, you're buying their why.

Because the why is so important. In fact, starting with why is, I'd say, even vital. Remember, last week, we need a what that's big enough, that's worthy to spend your entire life on, to give like every breath, to give every heartbeat, to give every moment to. And the question is, do you have a big enough what that you're living for? Or is it just a bunch of small whats that are going to run out? As many of you might know, my mom this last spring summer, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And so it was really good to see just how her faith just kicked into overdrive.

She'd always been a faithful woman, but she just launched into it. And it was also a great reminder for me as her son who keeps to myself a little bit when it comes to family like, oh yeah, we'll talk later. And you realize you don't have unlimited time to talk to your parents. And so my mom and I would kind of set some time aside on a regular basis to have deeper conversations, which is such a big gift. And one of the things that she shared this summer before school started up again, we were talking about death. And one of the things she said is like, you know, I'm not afraid to die.

I don't have any fear of dying. She said, I'm sad. I don't want to miss out on my grandkids' lives and stuff, but she said, I'm not afraid. And she shared some things that she has discussed with some of her and my dad's friends. Now, they have a lot of friends who are faithful, but they have a ton of friends, but a few friends who have been pretty much avowed atheists their entire lives. And these are people who are pretty successful with their lives, and they're like really okay with their atheism. Like, no, God doesn't exist. After this, there's nothing. And for a while, that was enough for them. Because, well, we got to be busy. We have these careers. We have these jobs. We're going to do this.

And for a while it was enough. And they're like, we're raising kids. And that was enough. But now they're all getting to the same age as my parents. And death is coming closer and closer. And COVID is realer and realer for them. And one of the drivers for their lives is no longer this. We have to do this. next what, this next what, is the question of like, why am I doing this? And there's this fear that has gripped so many of them. Because there's the what they lived for, the wise they're doing things, are now they're realizing they're running out and they're too small. This man, his name is Philip Douglas.

Philip Douglas was, he wrote a book, and in it he describes how he and his wife and their kids were pretty much, like, slightly above average American Catholics for a big part of their lives. And what I mean by that is they not only went to Sunday Mass, they also helped out of the parish. They kind of regularly prayed. Somebody regularly prayed as a family. At one point that Philip Douglas was struck by the gospel where Jesus says, if you want to be perfect, if you want to follow me truly, go sell what you have, give it to the poor, then come follow me. And Philip was just cut to the core about this. And it realized that God was calling him to be, he and his wife, and their kids, to be full-time missionaries.

And so that's what they did. They basically sold all their property, and they traveled the world, serving. the Catholic Church and bringing Christ to people wherever they are. And I think right now they're somewhere in Asia. I don't even know where. But in his book, he gives this example that I think is just remarkable. He says, for a lot of us, life is like a marathon. I don't know if you've ever run a marathon, but if you have, you know this exact feeling.

If you've trained for the marathon, the first 20 miles of the marathon are pretty standard. I mean, you're like, hey, this is great. It's hard, but like I'm ready for it. Like it's tough. Those first 20 miles are, they can be difficult. They can be demanding. but you're like, no, this is what I've been. I'm ready for these first 20 miles, and they can be tough, but they're doable, and you're

still having a good time. But at some point, virtually everybody in a marathon hits the wall. And when you hit the wall, there's two things that happen. One thing happens first, then the last thing that happens before you either finish or quit. Then when a person hits the wall, they start thinking to themselves, I don't know if I can finish. Like there's that physical challenge. They're like, I don't know. First 20 miles, no problem.

This is hard, but it's man. but after you hit the wall, it's, I don't know if I can finish. But then there's the second wall that's more emotional, it's more mental, it's deeper, and it's harder to get through because it's not just I don't know if I can finish, it's the question, what does it matter if I finish? Does it even matter if I keep running all the way to 26.2 miles? And for so many of us who are living for small what's, yeah, that's fine when there's a job to do.

Yeah, it's fine when there's family to raise. It's fine when there's family to raise. a bunch of other what's to do, but at some point in our lives, we hit that wall where it's like, wow, I don't know if I can finish, but then even worse, what does it even matter? Why even keep going? That's the question. Why even keep going? That's why Friedrich Nietzsche, right? No, friend of Christianity, no friend of Catholicism. Friedrich Nietzsche had said, a man can survive. He can endure any what if he has a good enough, why? That you and I will be able to survive any what, And he's like, no, we call it be a saint.

We can do that. We can strive for that. We can get there if we have a strong enough why. And not just to get there, but just like the joy of having a why. In fact, Mark Twain, he once said there are the two greatest days in a person's life are the day they're born and the day they find out why. The two greatest days in your life were the day you were born and the day you find out why you were born. You ever wonder like why?

Like, God, why do I, why now? Why me? Why here? Why do I exist? If you ever ask that question, there's this book called the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Actually, the old one called the Baltimore Catechism. It was a question-answer kind of book. And even kids like who were in preschool or kindergarten, first grade, they'd go through this question answer of like teaching the faith. And the first question was, it's personal. Why did God make you? And the answer is, God made me. Or so question is, who made you? Answer, God made me. The second question is so profound to ask a first-grader and second graders, why did God make you? Like, oh my gosh, I don't know, existential crisis,

but it's not a crisis because there's a clear answer. Why did God make you? And the answer is, God made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this life, so as to be happy with him forever in the next. Imagine having that clear answer from your earliest age. I know exactly why I exist. I exist. God made me for a purpose.

There's a why, and that why is to love him. That's a pretty good why. In fact, it's the gospel today. When Jesus says, this is the commandment, which is another way to say, this is the why. It's to love God with everything. Love your neighbor yourself, but love God with everything you have. Which I know that for so many of us, like, I don't know, I see that. I'm like, okay, it's a little intimidating.

Like, everything, everything, or just kind of everything? It's kind of challenging. But imagine, what would it be like? to live with the absolute certainty that no matter where you were, you were exactly where you should be. All the time. Like, what would that be like in your life just to know that with absolute certainty, no matter what you were doing, that was exactly what you should be doing at any given moment, at every given moment. I mean, can you imagine the joy you would have in every moment?

I am exactly where I should be. Imagine the peace you'd have in every moment. I'm doing exactly what I should be doing. You can imagine the love at every moment. Because we realize this, I can't always choose where I am. I can't always choose what I'm doing. But the great news is, you absolutely can repurpose it all with a new why. Again, I can't always choose what I'm doing.

I can't always choose where I am. But you can repurpose all of it if you have a new why. Because the truth is you've been reclaimed. You have a new life. And we're called to be repurposed. to have a new why to live that life. I think a lot of us we think that we encounter Jesus, we encounter that love that is unstoppable and is unconditional,

that we have to do what Philip Douglas did, right? Leave everything, scrap it all, scrap it all, scrap all those relationships, all that job, all that work, all that stuff, and just go somewhere else. That's unique. That sometimes happens for people. But the most often thing that happens is that we're not called to abandon everything to be repurposed, be reclaimed and repurposed

Maybe that would simply mean doing all the old things with a new why. I mean, truly, to be reclaimed and repurposed, might mean doing all the same old things, but doing them with a new why. Obviously, there's change. The caveat. St. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. They encountered the love of God and Jesus Christ, and St. Paul says, he says, when you did that, you had to turn from some of your idols. You turned from the idols that were in your life.

And that's true for us, right? We can't just go back to, like, the sin if we encounter. the true, unstoppable, unconditional love of God, yes, something has to change. I have to turn from those things to serve the living and true God. But then, like this is a great thing, but then you get to live everything good in your life already just simply repurposed. So super clear. How to love God with everything.

Live as someone who's been reclaimed and live as if everything in your life has been repurposed. And this is the last thing, but it's the key thing and it's going to go on for maybe five minutes. So, St. Francis de Sales, he says this is the key to becoming holy. This is the key to being a saint that God has made you to be. This is the key to the roadmap. It's repurposing everything that's already in your life. And he says, we do this so simply, so easily, by simply doing this three-step process. Three words, ask, offer, and accept.

It says if we do that, this three-step process, are approaching every moment, everything, every action in our lives, ask, offer, and accept. Everything is re-perpetent. Everything has changed. So what does that mean? It means before I do anything, I ask God to be present and to help me. God, I'm about to do this thing. Please be with me and give me your grace. Because we know we don't make ourselves holy, right? God is the one who makes us holy. So I'm asking him for his help. So I just ask. Second thing is, we offer it to him and say, God, whatever this thing is, I'm about to do.

I offer it to you as a gift. This is my gift to you. I offered it up. And the third thing is we just resolve to accept whatever has come out of that moment. So I entrust myself to Him. God, I trust you. This is remarkable. I think this just today, even, when it came to prayer. Prayer is the most obvious one, right? We go into prayer and we just say, okay, God, I ask you to be present to me, and please help me pray. Simply ask.

Secondly, I offer to you whatever this prayer time looks like. I offer it as a gift. I offer this time, this, you know, 20 minutes, right here in your presence. It's my gift to you. And then thirdly, to be able to say, and I resolve to accept whatever happens. If it's dry prayer, I resolve to accept it. If it's like super fruitful prayer, I resolve to accept it. If I'm super distracted, I resolve to accept this.

Now, here's what happens. If we do this ask, offer, accept. Every moment becomes a sacrament. So, God, be present to me. He's present. That's a sacrament. He's truly present. If we offer him every moment, every moment becomes a sacrifice.

Every moment is actually an act of worship. And thirdly, if we resolve to accept every moment, every moment is an act of faith. It's an act of surrender to him. Like, whatever you want to give me, God, that's what I, get and I am resolved to accept it. And we do this again, you guys, not just before prayer, before everything. I know people who do this before getting in their car and driving to work, or as they're getting in the car and they're starting it up. They're like, God, I ask you to be present to me on my commute. I offer this drive to you as a gift and I resolve to accept

whatever happens. And again, the peace of knowing that in this moment I am exactly where I should be doing, we should be doing exactly what I should be doing. It happens. Same thing when it comes to you're studying. As you can do this, you can renew this, like a thousand times a day if you wanted to, to be able to say, okay, God, I'm about to study. I need to read this book. I need to watch this video.

I ask you to be present to me as I watch this video. Help me as I watch this video. I offer this time, it's super boring, whatever. I offer this time to you as a sacrifice. Maybe you love it. Like, I'm going to watch a movie. God, be present to me. Help me with your grace.

I offer this time to you as a gift and I resolve to accept whatever it is that you want to get. I mean, honestly, who does laughter? Like, honestly, even just to watch, whatever your show is. I got to tell you, some people at the house last night were watching the office, and I was the most annoying co-watcher of the office in the world last night because I kept saying, I kept doing the lines and then saying, I'm sorry, that was the last one, last time.

And then I would do the line again. And I'm sorry, that was last time. And I would do the line again because I want to show you all that I know this show so well. What if I've watched it at least twice? What if every time you watched your show for the 20,000th time, before it you would say, God, be present to me as I offer as I watch this show. Make me holy. I offer this time to you as a gift and I resolve to accept whatever it is you want. You guys, I would be so holy.

I would be so so holy because of Michael Scott. Thank you, Lord. But even in sorrow to be able to say, Lord, my heart is broken. My heart is breaking. Be present. and ask him, be present to me right now, make me holy, and I offer this time of sorrow to you as a gift to you, because I love you, and I resolve to accept wherever it comes out of this. I mean, working out before you go to work out, Lord, be present to me, make me holy through this

workout. Make me holy, swole and holy, swolly. You got to, I offer this to you, and I resolve to accept whatever gains, whatever it is, you give me. At least truly, truly, this is the thing. This is what it is to be, have a life reclaimed, and to live with that. every moment repurposed. Every moment becomes a moment where God is making you holy because you have a new why. How do we become saints? What's our road map? To love God with everything. That's how. How do we love God with everything? By loving God in every moment. How do you love God in every moment? We do that by allowing

ourselves to be reclaimed by His love and by allowing every moment to have a why, by allowing every moment to be repurposed as a gift of love.