Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 11/03/24 Made for Worship: Kingdom Priests

Episode Date: November 2, 2024

Homily from the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time. Worship is not about what we get, but about what we can give. When it comes to Mass, we often complain that we "don't get anything out of it". Is that what Mass is about? Is that what love is about? Or is love (and worship) about what we can give? Mass Readings from November 3, 2024: Deuteronomy 6:2-6 Psalms 18:2-4, 47, 51Hebrews 7:23-28 Mark 12:28-34

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this in other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark. Chapter 12 verses 28 through 34. One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, which is the first of all the commandments? Jesus replied, The first is this. Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is Lord alone.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. The scribe said to him, Well said, teacher, you are right in saying he is one and there is no other than he.

And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. And no one dared to ask him any more questions. The gospel of the Lord. a seat. So when I was a freshman in high school, a in 1994, a movie came out that was, that deeply and profoundly affected me.

It was the movie by Stephen Spielberg called Schindler's List. If you know anything about the movie Schindler's List, it's the story of a man, Oscar Schindler, who was a businessman who made a lot of money, selling stuff to the Nazi regime. At one point, and as he became wealthy, he became a flanderer, he became a pretty rough guy, pretty nasty guy. I think his wealth revealed, I think, a lot of his brokenness. And you can see some of that in the movie. If you read anything about his life, you can see that. He wasted a lot of his life. But at one point, he started employing a lot of Jews in his factories. And at one point, he should realize what

was going on that the Nazis were exterminating Jews. He started doing what he could to hide them. He started doing what he could to save them, preserve them from extermination by the Nazi regime. And it's an incredible story. Oscar Schindler is now, he declared a righteous Gentile by the Jewish people and just a remarkable thing. But there's a scene at the end of the movie that is worth watching the entire film just for this scene. Oscar Schindler is escaping with his wife, Emily, and they are fleeing, they're surrounded by all these Jewish people that Oscar and Emily had saved. At one point, one of the men that he worked for him

presents him with this letter and he says, hey, this should prove to all the authorities, not the German authorities, but the authorities outside of Germany that you did what you could to save us. And we all signed it. And he says, thank you. And then they presented with this ring.

And inside the ring in Hebrew, it says these words. It says, whoever saves one life, saves the world entire. And it's that moment. that Oscar Schindler realizes the power of one life, the power of if he could have just saved one more.

So he's looking, he's surrounded by, ultimately he has saved 1,200 people's lives. But that quote got to him, he who saves one life, saved the world entire. And so he looks around and he realizes he says this, he said, I could have got more out. He has this conviction now. He thought he was doing enough.

But at this moment, he said, they could have got more out, I could have gotten more. He said, if he goes on to say, if I had made more money, I could have spent more money to save more Jewish lives. He said, I threw away so much money. You have no idea how much money I threw away. And the other man, he's saying, no, no, listen, there will be generations because of what you did.

He says, but I didn't do enough. And he points to his car, and he says, look at this car. This car could have saved 10 people's lives. He's looking at his car saying, that's 10 lives right there. And he takes out this pin on his chest. And he says, two people, two lives. He says, this is made of gold. If it's not two, maybe one.

and he realizes that as much as good as he had done, he realized he could have offered more, he could have done more, he could have given more. And he says, one more, I could have gotten one more person out, and I didn't. I didn't. In the gospel today, Jesus makes it very clear that the great commandment, the two great commandments, love God with everything you have

and love your neighbor as yourself. You know, when it comes to that first commandment, love God with everything. Have you ever asked the question? How? I mean, just honestly, ask the question, okay, if that's the commandment, makes it really simple just love God with everything you have. How?

How does a person love God? Because I think we know, this read, we know the definition of love. The classical definition of love is simply to will the good of the other, right? To choose, it's a choice, not a feeling. It's to choose the good of the other person. That's great. That's amazing when it comes to our neighbor, right? When it comes to loving our neighbor, that second great commandment to will his good or her good.

But the question is how do we love God? Because why? because if love is willing to go to the other, well, here's God. God is goodness himself. So how do we love God? And Jesus makes it very clear. Jesus says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Like this is how we love God, right?

How we love God is by keeping His commandments. And there are two kind of branches of this. One is by loving our neighbor. You know St. John says, how can we claim to love the God we don't see unless we love the brother we do see. So we have to love our neighbor. But the second way we keep God's commandments is through worship.

So this last couple weeks, we've been in the midst of this series called Made for Worship. And we realize that worship is actually at the heart of the human person. Like every one of us at our very heart, we're made for worship. Why? Because the heart of religion is worship,

but the heart of worship is sacrifice. Because if we love something, we think that something is worth it, we ask the question, what can I give? We ask the question, if I think something is worth it, we ask, what can I offer? Just like Oscar Schindler, if I think that here's a life that's worth it, I look around and I think, I think, what can I do?

Right, because a thing is worth what someone is willing to sacrifice for that thing. And yet, so often our problem is this, our problem is, yes, we're made for worship. We're made to offer sacrifice, made to do something, and yet our experience of the Mass, our experience of the highest form of worship ever, is hollow, it's empty, we feel like passive observers. In fact, we might say this, okay, if the way we love God is to worship, well, I'll tell you this, worship sometimes feels the farthest thing from love.

Sometimes worship feels not even remotely close to love. I mean, how many times have we ever said this? How many times have we ever come to Mass and said, like, you know, I just don't get anything out of Mass. I'm sure every one of us has said something or thought something or maybe heard someone else say this thing. You know what, when it comes to Mass, I just don't get anything out of mass. Maybe that's your experience. Your experience is, okay, this is great.

I'm called the love God, but I don't get anything out of mass. I think there's three possible responses to that. The first is what I would call the Jansport response. Jansport is a backpack that in the 90s. There was a commercial that said Jansport, what you get out of it, what you put into it. So people say that, right? Say, I don't get anything out of mass. Well, you get out of mass, what you put into it.

And that's not false. It's not wrong. What do I mean me by that? What do I mean? What I mean is, you know, if you show up prepared for Mass, you'll get more out of it. Like, if over the court, I have a friend who every week, even though he's not getting ready to preach because he's a layperson, he will start praying the Sunday readings on Monday night because he's getting ready for it.

Every single day, he'll pray at the Sunday readings. So when he shows up for Mass, he's prepared. He gets a lot out of it. So you get out of it, what you put into it. In fact, the Catechism says this. The Catechism says, especially when we say, like, I don't get a lot. It says, those who are. who refuse to live according to the Spirit of Christ,

we'll find it impossible to pray according to the Spirit of Christ. We have to actually change our lives. So it's true. Jan Sport response, what you get out of it? It's what you put it into it. That's one. Someone says, okay, I don't get anything out of mass. We'll put something in.

Another response is, someone says, I don't get anything out of mass. Second response is the sarcastic response. I like the sarcastic response because I have a tendency towards sarcasm. But my sarcastic response is, really, you don't get anything out of mass. so you come to Mass and you don't actually hear the word of God proclaimed to you? No, not at all. Okay, you come to Mass and you don't actually you don't actually get to be in the presence of God Almighty.

Okay, you come to Mass and you don't get anything. You don't get the body-plud, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ as your food for eternal life. Like, yeah, I get it. That's my sarcasm. I'm there a little salty about this. But sometimes, in response to someone saying, I don't get anything out of Mass,

it's like, are you kidding me? You get Jesus Himself, God incarnate. But I think there's a third, and maybe best response. To someone who says, I don't get anything out of Mass, and that third and best response is what I call the worship response.

Or maybe you could call it the love response. Some says, I don't get anything out of mass, and the response is, good. Good, so good. Why? Because the heart of religion is worship. And the heart of worship is sacrifice. And worship has nothing to do with what we get.

worship has everything to do with what we give. I mean, think about this. You come to offer the sacrifice. There it says, worship indicates nothing whatsoever about getting anything whatsoever. It is all about giving. That's one of the reasons why worship is most closely associated with love than anything else. I have a friend. Again, San Thomas Aquinas says love is willing to the good of the other.

I have a friend named Nick, and Nick always says this. He says, love is a one-way street. Love is a one-way street. If love is willing to good of the other, that means I choose to love the other. person regardless of whether I get anything back. Now he makes the qualification. Relationships are two-way straight. But love itself is one-way street. If we're going to will the good or the other, I'm choosing to love them to will their good even if I get nothing back. Worship also in some ways gets to be a one-way street. I'm choosing to love God and should offer to God. I'm choosing

to worship God even if I get nothing back. I'm giving him what he's asked for. And that's the question. The question comes out of this is, well, what does he ask for? Again, if the answer to, I don't get anything out of mass is good, you're not there to give, you're there to get. The question is, you're not there to get, you're there to give. The question is, what do we give? I mean, it's a real question. The question is, what does God want? How does he want us to worship him?

In fact, if you go back through the whole Bible, if you go back through the history of humanity, the question that kind of plagues the human heart is, okay, God, I realize it. at the deepest part of my heart, I'm made for worship. I'm made to offer you sacrifice, but I don't know what you want. You know, in the book of Exodus, there's a classic story, right? The people of Israel, they're enslaved in Egypt. And God comes, he sends Moses to go to Pharaoh. Remember the message that God gives Moses to give to Pharaoh?

He says, okay, Moses, you're going to go to Pharaoh and you're going to declare to Pharaoh. The Lord God says, let my people go, right? That's the message. Now, for years, I thought that was the whole message. Like for years I thought, yeah, because God wants his people to not be slaves anymore. He wants them to be free. But the message goes on. The message is freedom for a purpose.

The message is freedom for a reason. That the Lord God said, Moses, go to Pharaoh and declare to Pharaoh that the Lord God says, Pharaoh let my people go so that they can come and worship me. The whole point of freedom is for worship. And so we know the story, right? Pharaoh says, no. And so Moses says, okay, here's some plagues. And after a couple of plagues, Pharaoh says, okay, fine, fine. You can take the men and go worship. And Moses says, actually, no,

we need the women and children too. We're all, it's not just men are made for worship, we're all made for worship. And Pharaoh says, no. And so fine, a couple more plagues. Pharaoh says, okay, fine, fine, fine. You can take the women and the children, take you all, and take whatever animals you're going to need to worship your God. And Moses says, actually, we can't. We have to take everything we have. Why? Because when we get to the place, the Lord God wants us to worship him, this is the big thing. He says, we don't know what God wants. We don't know how he wants us to worship him. We have to take everything we have so that when we get there and he tells us what he wants, we have it. And Moses says, well, never mind. No. And no, I always thought this was,

I always thought this was Moses being like sneaky. He's being like, you know, clever guy like, no, Pharaoh, we can't go with just our things. We need everything. Pope Benedict wrote a book about this a couple years ago. And he said, no, actually in this, Moses was telling the absolute truth. Moses is telling the truth about worship. He's telling the truth about our hearts. Moses was saying, it's true. The most important thing about this freedom is that we're being set free for worship. The heart of worship is sacrifice. And we don't actually know how God wants us to worship him. Because for worship to be true, for it to be an actual act of love, it cannot be about what I get. And it also cannot be about what I just want to give. It has to be about what God is asked for.

Why? Because worship in love are inextricably connected. What does the lover do? What's the question of a lover? The question of a lover is, what can I offer you? The question of a lover is, what can I give? The question a lover asks to the person they love, the one they're beloved is, what can I do? Like, what can I do for you? This is the most amazing thing. We ask God, we actually love and we say, what do you want me to do? If I'm made for worship, I'm made for love, what do you want me to do? And the amazing answer is this. That Jesus, on the night before he died,

sat at table with his disciples. And he took bread in his hands and he said, take this all of you and eat of it. This is my body given for you. Do this in memory of me. Took a chalice filled with wine, said, blessed it, thank to God. Said, take this all of you and drink from it. This is the chalice of my blood,

the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which we poured out for you. Do this in answer to the deepest question of the human heart, which is, God, how can I love you? God, what do you want? God, what can I do? The answer is, do this. That this is how God has asked us to worship Him, the mass. This is how God has asked us. Like, this is the sacrifice, the sacrifice of the Son to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now, at the same time, people say, but, but listen, but, but, Father, I get, I still don't get anything out of it. Wouldn't it make more sense? Wouldn't it honor God more if I went somewhere or did something where I felt closer to God? Like, wouldn't it make sense to God? Wouldn't it honor God more if I went somewhere where I felt more or I felt something? Like, I think this upcoming weekend in, in Minnesota, these next weekends are deer hunting. weekends. And a lot of guys, a lot of gals, they go out in the woods and say, that's where I find God.

I find God in the woods. Wouldn't it make more sense for me to actually go to a place I find God? Sure. What about just going in the woods and not shooting anything? Yeah, do that. You know, sometimes I spend time with my family and I feel God more. Wouldn't it make more sense to do that? Sure. Wouldn't it make more sense? I don't get anything out of Mass. Wouldn't it make more sense if I went down to the non-Catholic church down the street and like pray there, I would say, absolutely. That would totally be fine if we didn't know. Like that would totally be okay if God had never told us. That would be completely legitimate if we had no idea. Because then it would be our best guess. But God has told us. He has told us exactly what he wants. So this week is

my mom's birthday. My mom was born on November 4th. And so, I remember going up as a kid, on November 4th, we would, us kids, we'd ask my mom every, every birthday. We'd say, Mom, what do you want us to do for your birthday? I've said, Mom, what do you want us to do for your birthday? And she'd say something like, you know, actually be great if you kids would just clean the entire house top to bottom. And be like, oh, mom, no, no, mom, what do you really want us to do for your birthday? We didn't want to do that. She said, okay, you know, it'd be great if you could just go out and rake all the leaves. A bunch of big trees in the yard. Just rake the leaves. Like, yeah, Mom, what do you really want? And she'd say something like, well, if you kids, just, how about this?

Just don't bite the entire day. That'd be a great birthday present. And we'd say, oh, mother, you don't know us very well to you. And so what would happen is, my older sisters, they liked driving the car. They liked driving the car, they liked some money, go to the mall, buy my mom something for a birthday. My older brother and I, we would, we liked riding our BMX bikes, so we'd ride our BMX bikes all day. And at the end of the day, this is not a joke. We did this actually. call her mom out onto the porch and say, mom, let us show you this trick that we learned for you for your birthday. My little brother at the time, I remember him being really little. He liked dinosaurs back in the day. And so he painted a picture of a dinosaur. Like, here's mom, happy birthday. Now,

my mom, great mom, amazing woman. And so she received all this gift. She smiled. She said, thank you. I realize now, she said thank you. And she smiled, but there's a deeper truth. and deeper truth is, this is great, but this isn't what I asked for. That you actually asked me what I wanted for my birthday. And then you just gave me what you wanted. So I have to ask the question and know the answer. On her birthday, when we gave her not what she asked for, but what we wanted, who were we loving?

The truth is in those moments we weren't loving her. We were loving ourselves. Jesus said, the greatest commandment, to love God with everything, is what, do what he's asked. If he hasn't told us, then we wouldn't know. But he has told us. He said, do this. Offer this sacrifice of the Eucharist,

the son of God, to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. Because we realize this, we realize that if I don't, if I don't do that, if I avoid Mass, go somewhere else, I'm not loving God. I'm loving myself. Because why? Because worship reveals

who it is or what it is we love. But here's the crazy thing. True worship helps us to love. True worship helps us to love more, especially when we do what we've been talking about for the last couple weeks, especially when we stop watching the priest pray.

Here's a quick question. Oh, you've taken a turn here. We realize they're made for love, we're made for worship. When we love God, we are worshiping him the way he has asked us to do this. But remember, most of us show up to Mass, and we just watch the priest pray. So wherever you're sitting right now, I just ask you the question,

how many of you in your room, or maybe by yourself, are baptized? My guess is, many of you listening, many of you praying with us, you're baptized, which means this. It means that not only your adopted son or daughter of God. But I don't know if you know this. When you were baptized, the priest, deacon, or bishop, whoever it was, anointed your head with chrism oil, like chrismation oil, right? The oil that is resident of Jesus Christ, that chrism, Christ.

and you're anointed as a king or a queen in the kingdom of God. You are anointed as a prophet and commissioned to speak God's word to a world that longs to hear his word. But here's the crazy thing. You were also, just because you're baptized, you were also anointed a priest. St. Peter says this. You're a nation of priests. You're a kingdom of priests. And so if you've been baptized, you have what I call the kingdom priesthood.

It's an amazing thing. You're a kingdom priest. And remember, what does the Mass do every time? At every moment we talked about this last week, every Mass is we say, if the Lord accept the sacrifice of your hands, for the praise and glory of His name, for our good and good of all his Holy Church.

At every Mass, the Father is glorified, and the world is sanctified. At every Mass, the Father is loved and glorified, and the world is saved and sanctified. But you know that prayer right before you say those words in the Mass. The priest, the ministerial priest, looks at you and says, pray my brothers and sisters,

that my sacrifice and yours. At every single mass, the ministerial priest behind the altar has been trying to get your attention to the reality that you're not there to just watch the ministerial priest pray. You're there to actually exercise your kingdom priesthood. The problem is this.

The problem is too many Christians show up and watch. Too many Christians show up and we end up wasting our priesthood. Now, again, keeping this mind. How many, I always ask our students this to say, how many priests are there? And they're like, I don't know, a couple thousand. Like, no, no, there's one priest. Jesus is the great high priest. We heard that in the second reading today.

Jesus is the one great high priest. Every ministerial priest shares in his priesthood. And we need the ministerial priest to be actually to confect the Eucharist. Like without the priesthood, we couldn't have the Eucharist. But the role of the kingdom priests who are gathered around the ministerial priest, united to Jesus Christ's great high priest, is absolutely necessary. Remember why. Because remember the moment that saves the world, the moment that reconciles humanity to the Father, the moment that makes it possible for forgiveness of sins is Jesus on the cross saying, Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit. And at the mass, it's the unbloody representation of that moment when the ministerial priest elevates the body and blood of Christ and says those words, through Him, with Him and Him,

through Jesus, with Jesus and Jesus. In the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honors yours Almighty Father, forever and ever, amen. That is the representation of that moment of salvation. And all of the kingdom priests in the entire congregation cry out the great amen. It's an incredible way you can actually exercise your priesthood, but I want to give you one last way today. There's more in the weeks to come.

More last, one last way, you can exercise your kingdom priesthood so that you can stop watching the ministerial priest pray and start actually utilizing and exercising your priesthood. and it's during the offeratory. You know, so, you know, we know the offeratory, right? The offeratory is Catholic intermission, right? It's like when they're taking up the gift, you're making the collection,

paying up the gifts. It's called the presentation or preparation of the altar. A lot of times that's the moment we check out. Maybe there's a song, maybe we're singing along, we were just going through the bulletin. You guys, this is an incredible opportunity for every one of us to take, to exercise our kingdom priesthood. Why?

Because as the bread and wine is placed on the altar, You get to place as a kingdom priest, your hopes, your dreams. You get to place on the altar your needs, your sorrows. You have people in your life. Every one of us has people in our lives that there are situations that seem impossible to resolve. Maybe even in your life you have a situation that's impossible. This is the moment in the operatory to exercise your kingdom priesthood and place those gifts on the altar.

And what happens? on the altar with ordinary bread and ordinary wine that will become the very body and blood of Jesus Christ himself, those offerings of your kingdom priesthood are transformed. And this moment is powerful. This moment is beautiful. This is a moment of worship, not watching. And there's one last thing I just want to share.

There's a description of this by this woman named Blessed Catalina. So there's this woman, she's a blessed, right? She's on the way to becoming canonized as a saint. She's been beatified already. and she had a vision. Now, this is a private revelation, so it's not from Scripture. You don't have to believe it,

but it's an incredible description of what happens when kingdom priests actually exercise their priesthood. And she says this. She says, during the offeratory, Mary was talking to her. Mary said, pray like this. Lord, I offer all that I am,

all that I have, all that I can. These are words of a kingdom priest. I put everything into your hands, build it up, Lord, with the little thing that I am. By the merits of your son, for me, God Almighty, I petition you for my family, for my benefactors, for each member of the apostolate, for all the people who fight against us, for those who commend themselves to my poor prayers, teach me to lay down my heart as if on the ground before them so that they may

walk, their walk may be less severe. This is how the saints prayed, and this is how I want all of you to do it. This is Mary saying, be a kingdom priest at the offeratory, offer up everything. And then she described it. Catalina describes what she saw next. It has to do with guardian angels. again, this last thing is so cool, though. She said this. She said, suddenly some characters whom I not seen before began to stand up. It was as if from the side of each person present in the cathedral, another person emerged, and as soon as the cathedral became full of young, beautiful people,

they were dressed in very white robes, and they started to move onto the central aisle, and then went towards the altar. And then our mother, Mary, said, Observe, these are the guardian angels of each one of the persons who are here. This is the moment. in which your guardian angel carries your offerings and petitions before the altar of the Lord. And Catalina says, that moment, I was completely astonished because these beings had such beautiful faces so radiant as one is unable to imagine.

Your guardian angel does this at every mass, because when you exercise your kingdom priesthood, it goes on to say. Virgin Mary said, there's three kinds of guardian angels. First is, she said, that procession was very beautiful. Some of them were carrying something like a golden bowl with something that's shown with a great deal of golden white light. And Mary said, these are the guardian angels of the people who are offering this holy mass for many intentions.

Those who are conscious of what this celebration means, they have something to offer to the Lord, right? The kingdom priests exercising their priest and they're not watching their offering. She says, offer yourselves at this moment. Offer your sorrows, your pains, your hopes, your sadness, your joys, your petitions. Remember, the mass has infinite value. Therefore, be generous in offering and an asking. And she says, besides those first angels, came others who had nothing in their hands.

They were coming empty-handed. And Mary said, those are the angels of people who are here, but never offer anything. They have no interest in living each liturgical moment of the Mass, and they have no gifts to carry before the altar of the Lord. Those are those of us who just choked Mass and watched the priest pray. And at the end of the procession came other angels who were rather sad with their hands joined in prayer, eyes downcast. Mary said, these are the guardian angels of the people who are here but do not want to be. That is to say, of the people who have been forced to come here, who have come out of obligation,

but without any real desire to participate in the Holy Mass. She said, those angels go forth sadly because they have nothing to carry to the altar except for their own prayers. Do not sadden, Mary said, your own guardian angel. Ask for much. Ask for the conversion of sinners. For peace in the world. ask for your families, for your neighbors, for those who ask for your prayers. Ask for much, but not only for yourselves, but for everyone else. Remember, this is the last thing she says. Remember that the offerings which most pleases the Lord is when you offer yourselves as a Holocaust to Jesus.

So that upon his descent, he may transform you by his own merits. What do you have to offer the Father by yourselves, nothingness, and sin? But the offering of oneself united to the merits of Jesus, that offering is pleasing to the Lord. the Father. You're made for worship because you're made for love. But too often our worship is empty because our hands are empty. Too often, our worship is hollow because our hearts, we arrive to Mass with our hearts that are hollow. Too often our worship does nothing because we offer nothing. But a lover wants to offer everything. A lover wants to do something. So remember this. At every

Mass. You were called to do something. You were called to exercise your kingdom priesthood. United with the ministerial priest, united to great high priest, Jesus Christ. You're called to do something. What is that? Is to do this? Because he's asked us to. To do this out of love. And to do this in such a way that glorifies the Father and saves the world by exercising your kingdom priesthood, united to the ministerial priesthood, united to Jesus Christ, the great high priest. is this, to resolve never again to waste your priesthood, to never again to waste another Mass, but to show up to Mass, to show up for worship, and to resolve never again to watch, but to exercise your priesthood and worship.