Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 11/01/20 Roadmap: Guardrails

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

Homily from the Solemnity of All Saints. No one ever accidentally lived on purpose. No two saints are the same. There is no “cookie-cutter” path to holiness. While there are certain givens that must be present, each person has to assess where they are in their relationship with the Lord in order to know best where to place wise guardrails in their own life. Mass Readings from November 1, 2020: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14 Psalms 24:1-61 John 3:1-3 Matthew 5:1-12 Download the Homily Study

So I don't know if you know this, but last week I killed William Shatner. So if you were here at Mass, except for the night mass, I was like, oh yeah, William Shatner used to have this do-it-yourself show on TV before he died. And then I got all these messages from people saying, you know he's not dead. And I was like, no, I did not know he was not dead. And I'm really sorry about that. I did not mean to kill that guy. And I was thinking about the question all week.

Like, why did I think it was very weighed on me heavily? Why did I think William Shatner was dead? And I was like, well, I know I haven't seen a commercial forpricelyne.com in a really long time, so that might have been a factor. But then I realized, well, I knew that Leonard Nimoy had died. Like five years ago, Leonard Nimoy died. And then another character from the new Star Trek. I've been all day, all weekend.

I've been saying that it was Scotty. It's the character of Chekhov. Man, I need to brush up on my Star Trek. But like, he had died tragically, the young man. I thought, well, you know, Leonard Nimoy is dead. You know, and Chekhov is dead. So I guess they're all dead. I just kind of like killed them off all of them in my mind.

And I don't know if you've ever done that. You ever done that where it's like, well, they're just kind of like part of the group, so they're all the same? You ever do that where it's like you've got to see a group of people and you're like, this kind of all the way? We do this. You've ever had that happen to you where you have this, someone's like, oh, you're a hockey player. Okay, that's all I need to know.

You're one of those. Or someone like, oh, you're in the choir. Got it. No problem. You're a choir kid. I know everything I need to know about you right now. Or especially if you ever had older siblings in high school. Like those teachers who wouldn't even bother to get to know your first name because they're like, no, you're one of the O'Reilly boys.

I don't even need to know your first. I was Little Schmitty. My entire elementary school, high school, because my brother Mark was big Schmitty, they didn't know my first name. Or you're one of the Lundy kids. Like basically, you're part of the group. You're all the same. And obviously, usually that's harmless, unless you end up, you know, killing off the former lead of a groundbreaking sci-fi franchise. But usually it's harmless.

And then we get to today. We get the feast of all the saints. And the problem is if we think in our minds that here's all the saints, that means basically all the same. That sometimes we have this idea, right, that all the saints are just the same as everyone else. And the problem with that is not only is it just plain wrong, that the saints are just the same.

But it actually can lead us to a place of discouraging despair because we've been doing this series called Roadmap, right? And the whole what? The whole purpose of your life, God made you on purpose? The whole purpose of your life is to be a saint. In fact, there's this guy, his name is Leon Blas. And Leon Blah once said, the only real tragedy in life is to get to the end and not have been a saint. We realize that the purpose of our lives is to live, the big what of our lives,

is to live in such a way that one day, this feast day is your feast day. That's our call. To live in such a way that one day, with God's help, this feast day is your feast day. And that doesn't mean you necessarily have an ST period in front of your name. but it does mean that we are all called to be saints. This is the point of life. And if all the saints are just all the same, then not only is that seemed bland and very cookie-cutter-esque,

but also it seems completely impossible because I know myself and I'm not anything like those saints. Like I know myself, and I know that I'm nothing like the saints that I've read about. We have to realize this, first of all, tonight. None of the saints are the same, not one of them. They come from every background, they come from every race, every nationality, ethnicity, there are some saints who are born destitute and live their entire lives in poverty,

and there are some saints who literally are born into castles, and they were royalty their entire lives. You have some saints who were geniuses and some saints who never learned how to read. We have some saints who were physical giants and some saints who are physically broken. We have some saints who literally were former slaves and other saints who were former slave owners. I mean, just even like some of the saints we all know, like St. Peter and St. Paul, so different. You have Paul who was so hyper-educated. He was educated by one of the most influential rabbis of his day, Gamaliel. And you have St. Peter, who was uneducated, who might not have known how to read,

who might not have known how to write. Both of them saints. You have someone like Mary Magdalene. Scripture says that Jesus delivered seven demons from her, and you have Mary Armam, who is conceived without sin. That's quite a difference. You have someone like St. Thomas Aquinas. When St. Thomas Aquinas told his family that he wanted to enter the Dominicans,

they literally put him under house arrest, and his brothers hired a prostitute to bring to his room to basically tempt him into sin so he'd be so discouraged that he'd give up his dream of being a Dominican. You have that experience versus, like St. Teresa of Lesotho, who not only were her mom and dad both saints, like literally canonized saints,

but every one of her sisters entered the convent. Kind of like very, very opposed, very different lives. One of my favorite, Blessed Matthew Talbot, is an Irishman who was an alcoholic, who encountered Jesus in this power, and he was freed of his addiction. And a Chinese man named St. Mark J. Tien Chang, who is an opium addict.

He died as an opium addict. But he, with his last breath, gave his life for Jesus, for the faith. So different. One of my favorite saints, St. Moses the Black, who's also known as Moses the Ethiopian, or Moses the Strong. He spent almost his entire young life

as a marauder, as a bandit, as a murderer, and a thief. He got to a monastery once and became a monk. once and became a monk. At one point is the story about, here's Moses the Black as a monk in this monastery in Ethiopia, and there were other bandits who were going to raid the monastery. And Moses the Black came out and beat them all up, carried four of them, like by the scruff of their neck before the abbot and said, okay, so I beat them up, I subdued them. I shouldn't kill them, right? Like, we don't do that here. And the Abbott was like, right, don't kill them.

That was enough. Those four bandits also became monks. Moses the Black actually died laying down his life for the other monks. So there's a other band of Marauders who came to the monastery, and he stood in the gap while they fled. You have someone like Moses the Black and someone like St. Catherine of Siena, who, like, lived in her parents' house her entire life. It's very similar to many of us. But who also counseled kings, and she counseled popes, like, remember what St. Francis de Sales said, the whole key, our guide through this whole time, this whole series, he says, be, what is the saint, be who you are, and be that well.

So it means that you're going to look different, and it means that if you're going to be a saint, you're going to live differently than almost every other saint. In fact, Francis DeSales said it like this. He said, when God, through Creator, made all things, he commanded that plants bring forth fruit each according to its own kind. So apple trees bring forth apples and orange trees bring forth oranges. You don't want them to bring forth the same fruit.

He goes on to say, he says, likewise, when he made Christians who are the living plants of the church, he asked in the bring forth fruits of holiness, each one in accord with their own character, with their own station, and their own calling. He goes on to say, he says, so I say that holiness must be practiced in different ways between the, by the nobleman and by the working man,

by the servant and by the prince, by the widow, by the unmarried girl, and by the married woman. Everyone just living differently, he goes on. He said, but even this distinction, that you have to be different according to your different state of life, even this distinction is not enough. For the practice of holiness must be adapted to your own strengths. and to your own occupation

and to the duties of you in particular. So again, holiness is going to completely look differently. Now, obviously, those saints, all the saints have some things in common. Like, Jesus is the center of their life. That's one thing they had in common. Every one of the saints, they made the sacraments, the heart of their lives. Every one of the saints made time for prayer in their days.

Every one of the saints had the Eucharist as the source and summit of their lives. Every one of the saints had a devotion to Mary as our mom. And I was thinking about this. Like, every one of the saints had a disson thing. devotion to the Blessed Mother, except for one. There's only one saint I can think of who didn't, who wasn't devoted to Mary, and that is Mary herself. But all the saints, no matter how different they were, they also all had this. They all had a plan of life. Every one of them had a roadmap. Every one of them knew the what they were made for. Every one of them knew who they were as a child

of God. And every one of them had a roadmap. They had a plan. Remember St. Francis the Again, he said, the Christian life requires strategy, that no one ever accidentally lives on purpose. So they all had a plan, they all had a roadmap, they all have what they call a rule for life, a rule of life. Now, I know when I say the word rule, that some of you are like, okay, that's it, I'm out. Because sometimes you just don't like rules, right? Like, I want to be able to do what I want to do, and I want to be able to be spontaneous. And it makes sense. We rightly rebel against rules when they're unfair or when they're unjustified or when they're

when they're unreasonable. So we didn't count of rules that are unfair. Like, no, of course we're going to rebel against that. I don't know if you ever played tag with someone. Of course you have. But if you ever played tag and you're like, no, no, no, I caught the tail end of your shirt. That means I got you. But then when they catch the tail end of your shirt, you're like, no, you didn't touch me, really?

You know, that's unfair. So stop doing that, you guys. But if rules are unfair, we don't like them. If rules are unjustified, we don't like them. Basically, this rule serves no purpose. There's no reason for it to be here. It just gets in the way. We hate rules like that.

And there's some rules that are unreasonable. Like they're only there for their own sake. They ask too much. They actually take away from the game. So I just invite you to do this. Think of your favorite game. Like whatever that thing is, whether it's a sport, playing soccer, or some board game or whatever your favorite game is,

whatever that thing is, whatever game you love playing, it has rules. Like it has to. that the point of playing, the point of a game is fun. That's the whole point. If you're not having fun, don't play the game. The whole point of a game is to have fun. But a game without rules not only ceases to be fun,

it also ceases to be a game. And the good rules are the ones that serve the point of the game. So if the point of the game is fun, the point of life is God. The point of life is to. to love God by being who you are and being that well. So when you write your rule, that's what we're going to do over the next three or four weeks, we're going to write our own rule.

Like what is your rule of life? What is your roadmap? That rule has to serve the relationship. The point isn't the rule. The point is the relationship. That if we're going to create a roadmap, that roadmap has to actually get you to where you're meant to go. Because without a rule, without a rule, we're merely

merely reactive. Like without a rule, that's when we become slaves. Without boundaries, we don't know where we are. Without guideposts, without markers, without a map, then I actually can't do what I want to do. Without a rule, without a roadmap, then I can't be spontaneous. So we think sometimes that rules are a straight jacket,

but no, good rules are meant to be the road. So again, in the next couple weeks, When you write your roadmap, when you write your rule, you have to do it like this. You have to write this rule, your rule for your life, as someone who actually cares about you. I think too often when we write a plan for our lives, we are like the meanest people in the world to ourselves. Like, you're going to get up at this time of day. You're going to do this all day. And then at the end of the day, you're going to crash into bed because you're exhausted.

So there, that's how tough people live. Like, no. Write your rule in the next couple weeks as someone who actually wants to see you succeed. It's not as a tyrant to yourself, but like a good coach. Because what does a good coach do? A good coach, they know your weaknesses, they know your strengths, they know what you're good at, they know where you struggle, and they want to see you succeed. They want to see you get to the place they know you could be. So again, as you write your rule, we have to write it like someone who actually cares,

like someone who wants you to succeed, like someone who knows your strengths and your struggles, your wounds and your wins and wants to see you win. And what that means is, the first step for your roadmap, that's going to look just like yours. It's not going to look like anyone else's. But the first step for your roadmap is the most important step in any map. You know, I love maps, but you can have the most complicated,

the most information-laden map. It has all the data you ever possibly need, but it's going to be a useless map unless you have one critical piece of information. You can look at the most detailed map, known to humanity, but if it lacks one critical piece of information, it is a useless map, and that critical piece of information is, where are you, where you are? So that's the first step.

As we begin crafting this roadmap for yourself, what you and I have to do individually is say, okay, I know who I am. Second reading today, First John says, beloved, you are God's sons and daughters, right? His image is on you, his inscription is on you, you belong to him, you know who you are, you know why you live, you've been reclaimed and repurposed your entire day, but the next question is, where are you on that map? What that means is, what are my strengths? What are my struggles? Where are my wounds? Where are my wins? We're in my life, do I consistently crash and burn? And where in my life do I consistently hit it out of the park? Like, I think

too often when we look at ourselves like this, we fall into the trap of comparing and condemning. We look at where we've fallen and we're like, I shouldn't do that. I'm so stupid. We look at where we win and we're like, that's amazing. then we fall. Then I'm so stupid again. We jump into this process of compare and condemn. We look at our strengths, look at our struggles, and we compare and condemn.

I'm going to invite you over the course of this next week to put that to the side. It doesn't help. It doesn't honor God. Instead of compare and condemn, I'm going to invite us all to do this. Observe and learn. That's it.

Observe and learn. To be able to say, okay, yeah, this is what always happens to me on Friday nights. Dang it, okay, okay, just observe. how'd you get there? Where's the weakness? Where's the wound? And learn from it.

You know, to be able to do that, it's called non-judgmental observation. It's kind of a psychological deal. But it's that sense of, like, I can look at myself and not jump to the short-circuiting of condemning myself. I just look, observe, so I can learn. And you do this calmly. In fact, I heard a priest recently tell this story about this village that was next to this monastery.

And all the villagers, they wanted to know what's life like in the monastery. And so finally, one of the villagers asks one of the monks. It's like, what do you do all day? What is life like in the monastery? How do you spend your days, your nights? And the monk looks at him and he said, well, we fall down and we get up. And then we fall back down and then we get back up.

And then we fall back down again. And then we get back up again. And to be able to like, I know that about myself. Like if any of us are going to be honest, like that's our story too. Like, what do you do on Monday? Well, I fall down and I stay down. Okay, that's where we short-circuit ourselves. Like, it's that, no, observe and learn.

Here are my strengths. Here are my struggles. Here are my wounds. Here are my wins. That's where I am on this roadmap. And then the next thing is if I know where I am and I know where I fall, I know where I drive off the road, that's where I build guardrails. This is where I drive off the road every single time.

So that's where I build guardrails. We all know this, right? In our country, gosh, I'm so grateful. DOT, well done, Department of Transportation. Because I have not seen in our country, recently, at least, any roads that were built up right up to a cliff. Like, we don't have anything like that where you build, like, the asphalt goes right up to the cliff and that drops right off.

Because, you know, you make one wrong turn, two inches to the wrong way, and you're dead. So what do they do? You have the cliff, and then you have some green space. it's a buffer. And then you have the guardrail. And then you have some more green space. And then you have the asphalt. And then you have the shoulder.

And then you have the rumble strip. And then you have the road. Like, how genius is that? Because too many of us, what do we do? We build our lives right up to the cliff. With the idea like, no, I'll be fine. It'll be fine. Instead of saying, no, this is where I am.

This is where I always drive off the road. So this is where I'm going to. build guardrail? What could guardrails look like in your life? Maybe you're someone who's like, and I struggle with procrastination so much. And I just, it keeps me from doing all the things I want to do. It keeps me from being a kind of person. I know God wants me to be. That's where I am. Rather than condemning myself, I observe and learn. I say, where do I need to build them some guardrails? So like, okay, what are the things that are keeping you from getting things done? They're making you procrastinate. You might say, well, it's, I can't say no to my friends during the week.

Okay. How do you build in a guardrail there? You might say, like, I'm just on social media all the time. You know, they have these apps that actually measure how long you're on social media and then lock you out if you want them to. Like that could be a thing where you say, I'm just going to build in a guardrail. I'm going to make that decision for myself ahead of time. I know where I am. So let me build some guard.

I remember talking to couples all the time where couples will meet with me because they want to say, Father, we are striving to be a great couple. We want to have an incredible relationship, but we keep falling together. We keep falling in areas of purity, impurity together. And we don't know what to do. We keep trying and trying and trying and keep falling and falling and falling. We don't know what to do. And so I'll usually ask, like, well, are there any, you know, particular places or times when you fall into this sin?

And they're like, no, just any time? Like, really? When you're having brunch at your mom's house, just any time, just like that? Like, well, no. Okay, what are the places? What are the times? And sometimes they'll say like, oh, actually what it is is it's at his house, you know, when his roommates aren't home or it's in my apartment. Usually late at night, what happens is we fall asleep, watch in a movie.

and then we wake up and we do so good the whole time and then wake up from the thing and that's when stuff happens. Like, okay, now you know where. So how do you build in a guardrail? I mean, it's sometimes so simple, especially, gosh, you know, sometimes our pace in life is just race and race and race.

Maybe you're the kind of person who overcommits. Like if someone asks you to do something, you're just like, yes, that's my default, yes. And you're like, why is my life so chaotic? I have an idea. But you don't know, that's where you are, but you don't know how to build in a guardrail. I am so grateful for our former bishop, Bishop Serba.

Years ago, he told me, he said, Father, I don't want you saying yes to any invitations that are past this upcoming, whatever upcoming June there is. That's my automatic, my default. He built a guardrail for me. So now if anyone invites me to do anything after June of 2021, my automatic answer is guardrail. And I'm so grateful for that because otherwise I'd be like scheduled as in 2026.

Like, oh, sure I'll do your wedding in the year 3000. But what if you had a guardrail, an automatic guardrail for your response? Like when someone asked you to do something, maybe your guardrail is saying, that's awesome, I'm so grateful you asked, I have to check. Guardrail. Just give yourself some buffer rather than automatic, yes. In fact, last example. I had a couple in marriage prep once, and they described a scene from their worst fight.

What happened was he was programming, the computer debt major, and he also liked to game in his off time. And he was at his house, and he was on the computer. He was playing a game. And she came over to the house. And he's like, hey, how you doing? Good to see you, blah, blah, blah. And she starts telling him about her day.

And he's listening as he's playing the game, and he's kind of doing the, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. At one point, in the middle of her story, he gets up, he pauses the game, gets up and goes into the kitchen. And she immediately stops talking to him, and he immediately realizes something is wrong. He was an astute young man. He felt this cold,

chill come from the other room and he walked out and he saw the daggers staring from her eyes to him and he's like, what's wrong? And she said, I was talking and he said, I know I was listening. Thus began the big fight. At the end of the fight, though, they came to this conclusion. They realized here's where we are, here's our guardrail. They said, because we love each other, we care about each other, whenever we see each other at the end of the day, we're giving each other 15 minutes of eyeball time. Meaning, if you're playing a game, you're playing a game, and we're going to look at each other as we check in on our day. It was like, here's where we are, here's the guardrail.

See, this is what it is to have a rule. And that's my invitation. This is the last thing. This week, my invitation is begin crafting a rule, a roadmap for your life by asking the question, where am I? And asking it in such a way that serves you, that serves your relationship with God. And then also recognizes, here are my cliffs. Here are my struggles.

Here's where I crash and burn. here's where I need some guardrails. And just begin by putting those guardrails in again, crafting your roadmap, crafting your rule. This is where I am based off of you, not of someone else. This is the feast of all saints, not the feast of all the same. Where are you in this season of your life?

Where do you need the guardrails? To build those in in such a way, take this first step in such a way that one day, this feast day will be your feast day.