Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 11/07/21 Learning to Lose: Practice Dying

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Homily from the Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time. Death is unavoidable. We will all lose everything. We will all lose everything...even to the point of our very lives. Rather than avoid death, we can practice dying by actively giving away our claims to our materials, time, and our abilities. Mass Readings from November 7th, 2021: 1 Kings 17:10-16 Psalms 146:7-10Hebrews 9:24-28 Mark 12:38-44

Hi, this is Father Mike. Just before, you know, the homily starts today, I just wanted to have a quick note of thanks. I just wanted to, you know, it's November, and it is the season of giving thanks. We have Thanksgiving later on coming up. And I just wanted to thank you for being part of this community, for listening to these homilies and supporting this community by your prayers, supporting me by your prayers, and supporting this community because so many people have given over the last number of years. In fact, I imagine if you're part of the congregation online here or the people who have listened to

these homilies for the past number of years, When November hit, you probably realized, oh, he's going to start talking about give to the max day. And if that was your thought, you were correct. On November 18th, we have give to the max day. And if you're not familiar with that, it is a day in the state of Minnesota where a lot of nonprofits or non-for-profits ask those people who believe in the mission of this organization to support the organization, not only through prayer, but also financially. And so we're no different. We rely upon the gifts. We rely upon the financial support, not only of our students and their families who want them to have a life-changing encounter with Jesus, but also we rely upon the financial support and the prayers of those who listen to these podcasts and those who join us on or through our online masses.

So this November 18th is our give to the max day. And if you're interested at all in supporting this mission, supporting this ministry financially, this is the month to do it. We don't really ask for support throughout the rest of the rest of the time. of the year. Thankfully, we haven't had to do that. But this is the month that we just say, you know, in order to keep this ministry going, in order to keep reaching students with the gospel of Jesus, we not only need grace and we also need financial support. So if I just invite you, if you're willing to pray and ask the Lord if he's calling you to support us, I know there's so many good ministries out there, but hopefully we're a ministry that's worth supporting as well.

that means you can go anytime this month to give mn.org. That's give minnesota right give mn.org or go to bulldog catholic.org both places have an opportunity where you can donate. So at bulldog catholic.org, just a donate button. You can click on that. Givemn.org. Just search for Newman. Search for a university of Minnesota Duluth and we'll pop right up and you can follow the instructions there. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being part of this community because, man, as I'm preparing like homilies as I'm preparing the masses, I know that you can't be in person with us, but I do know that I keep you in my prayers knowing that here I want to share

these words from God, hopefully, that not only touch our students, but also touch those who listen to these words through podcasts, through YouTube, through whatever means. So I've been praying for you. Every homily,

I pray for you because I just want the Lord to be glorified. And I want you to come to know him and fall in love with him more and more. I want our students to come. to know him and love him more and more as well. So once again, thank you so much for being part of this community. Please pray and ask the Lord if he's calling you to not only pray for us, please do that, but also if he's calling you to support us. And if he is, visit boldlycatholic.org and click on donate or go to give mn.org. Thank you so much. And I hope you enjoyed the homily. So as I mentioned at the beginning of mass, these women in the in the readings today,

both of them are at a place. Maybe you say like a place of devastation, a place where both of them have nothing left. And they do something when they have nothing left, that is incredible. We've been talking about this for the last couple of weeks, about how one of the tasks of life, one of the great tasks of life is life it's about losing. And we have to learn how to lose.

And at some point, we realize this truth, this hard truth they talked about last week and how everything, at some point, everything is going to be taken. At some point, all is going to be lost. And what our call is to, when all is lost, to love God with all that's left. And I bring that up because we talked about this last week, because you've heard of a thing called Twitter. You guys have heard of Twitter?

You've heard of it? Yes. So someone tweeted at me after last week's homily, and they said something along the lines of, you have no idea. I have lost everything. And I think I have a right to be angry and resentful. I don't know if any of any who's ever like tweeted out at you. Sometimes you just see like, you know, text on a screen and you want to argue back,

you want to lash back out, you want to say, listen, here's where you're wrong. And maybe that came up in me a little bit, but he'd stop and thinking and realize, okay, there's a person on the other end of this. Here's this human being. I have no idea what his story is. All I know is that when he looks at his life, he says, he sees himself, I'm someone who's lost everything. And I could never possibly argue with that.

but to also be able to say, I've lost everything, therefore I have a right to be angry and resentful. I'm not sure that that's, I'm not sure that that's the best response. Again, I'm not here to argue with them. Again, I have no idea. And you could even come here tonight and maybe you could say, yeah, last week I was thinking the exact same thing. Father, you're up there talking about all this stuff. And I have a right to be angry resentful. My sister, you have no idea what happened to my sister, how all this stuff came down on her.

She has a right to be angry or resentful. My parents, all the things that they've suffered, all the things they've lost in the course of their life, I think they have a right to be angry and resentful. You're absolutely right. I have no idea. But I do know this. I do know this truth. And that truth is that life is about losing. The life is the process of repeated loss.

And that every one of us, I know this is true. Every one of us at some point will lose everything. That we will lose until there's nothing left to lose. And so the task is, how do I lose well? And how we lose well? We talked about this last week. How I lose well is I lose, but I don't become resentful. I lose, but I don't become angry.

I lose, but I don't forget how to love. You know, there's this ancient Roman poet and philosopher named Seneca. And at one point Seneca, he said, throughout the whole of life, one must continue to learn how to live. Which I think is great, right, lifelong learners. Throughout the whole of life, one must continue to learn how to live. But he goes on to say, he says, and what will amaze you even more throughout one's life, one must learn to die.

Throughout the whole of one's life, one must continue to learn to live, but what will amaze you even more throughout life, one must learn to die. I don't know if you remember at the beginning of this series, I talked about how I think every young person should be in sports, every young person should be in a competitive cheer or competitive dance, competitive band, whatever it is. Any kind of, young person should be in any kind of activity where you could get cut or any kind of activity where you could learn, where you could lose. because I think one of the great task of life is to learn how to lose. But I didn't reveal this.

I had that thought a couple of years ago. I was out in Bagley, you know, behind Newman, and I was going for a walk or run, whatever I was doing. And I was just troubled by the fact that I talk to so many people who have faith. They believe in God. They believe in Jesus. They trust him. But then the moment something goes wrong in their life, they begin to distrust him.

The moment something goes wrong in their life, they begin to resent him. The moment they lose, or even the moment someone dies, they begin to die. out. My initial thought was not sports. My initial thought was, I think every child should have a pet or every child should live on a farm. Because I think every person from an early age should know what it is to love something and then have that thing die. You're like, you're a psycho. What? Are you kidding? But no, honestly, there is something so important about that in our lives. To have given your heart to something and then to lose that thing to death is necessary. And again, you might say that's extreme, but I don't know.

I think our culture avoids really avoids talking about death. I think that we don't like to think about death. I think that we do everything we can to keep the reality of death as far away from us as possible. But we have to face it. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I'm so grateful even if you didn't have pets or didn't grow up on a farm. A lot of your parents might have taught you good night prayers. I know the good night prayers my parents taught me were so perfect because think about even the concept of good night prayers.

Sounds sweet. Hey kids, let's go say our good night prayers. Okay, here we go. Here, dad kneels next to the bed. Her mom's kneel in there. Okay, here we go. Let's pray our good night prayers. Just so, just, oh, here we go.

Now I lay me down to sleep. Oh, so nice. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Sweet. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. It's like, what is this? Then you turn off the light,

have a good night, sweetie. Don't think about death too much. Like, I'm alone in the dark, and you just said you might die before the morning. Like, this is every bad dream I've ever had in my entire life. And yet, I think, I think there's something so good about this, because why? It's a great prayer for kids. It's an incredible prayer for adults.

Because one of the things that is, is every single night, as I lay myself to sleep, I realize I'm facing death, and we have to face it. Because we know this, death is unavoidable. And yet we try to avoid it until we can't. We try to avoid it until we're forced to pay attention to it. And then when we have to pay attention to it, we don't know how to respond to it. So we see it, we encounter it, and we're shocked. It happens to us, and we're angry.

It happens around us and we're resentful. In fact, years ago, I came across this man, 93-year-old man. He lived a full life. He had kids, he had grandkids. He had great-grandkids. But at the end of his life, at 93 years, his grandchildren brought his great-grandson to his bedside. And this great-grandfather not only refused to hold his great-grandson,

refused to even look at him because he was so resentful that here's this child who has his whole life ahead of him and him he had his whole life behind him and even after 93 years of life he was full of resentment he was full of fear i don't know if he was a christian but he was full of fear you know the letter to the hebrews chapter two has this this powerful line it says jesus came that he might destroy the one who has the power of death then here's this incredible line it says and and do to what and to free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life. To free those people who through fear of death have been subject to slavery all their life.

Fear of death is slavery. The fear of death is slavery. And that's what was binding this 93-year-old man. Now contrast that 93-year-old man with my mom. Why not bring up my mom? She's awesome. Bring up goodie here tonight. So a little FYI about my mom.

In 2020, in March of 2020, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And so all that summer, she went through chemo last fall. She had surgery. It went great. But then about a month, a week and a half ago, they found that it's back. And so my mom just restarted chemo on Tuesday. So pray for goody. But when she was, I don't know, this is a bunch of years ago.

She was maybe 65 at the time. She and I went to Daily Mass together. And the psalm that day, the responsorial psalm was Psalm 90. And in Psalm 90, it has these words. It says, our span or our lifespan. Our span is 70 years or 80 for those who are strong. Most of these are emptiness and pain. They pass swiftly and we are gone.

That's one of those cheery psalms. But that line, our span is 70 years or 80 for those who are strong. So as we were leaving Mass, I turned to my mom and I said, Mom, 70 years, 80 for those who are strong. You got like five left, maybe 15, because I am a very kind and sensitive son. And she looked at me and she said, I was literally thinking the exact same thing. She's like, wow, five years, that's it. You know, we don't know.

We don't know when it's going to end. In fact, there's a man named St. Francis de Sales who talks about the fact that we don't know anything about death. We don't know. He says, you don't know if you're going to die in the city. You don't know if you're going to die in the country. You don't know if you're going to die at night or during the day. You don't know if you're going to be surrounded by people or alone.

He says there's only two truths, two things. things you absolutely know about death. Number one, you are going to die. And number two, it's going to come sooner than you think. The two truths we know about death. You are going to die, and it will come to you sooner than you think. So what do we do? Like, what do we do with that truth that we know is true? At the end of his life, the Greek, uh, Plato, again, not the clay, the philosopher. Plato, you know, he was asked by his disciples, he was asked by his students,

at the end of this long life where you pursued wisdom with everything you had and taught so many people and studied so well and asked the big questions, what do we need to know? What's the greatest piece of wisdom you could pass on to us at the end of this life? Plato looked at them and he responded with two words. The greatest piece of wisdom he could pass on

to his students at the end of his life, two words. And those two words were, practice dying. The wise people among us are the ones who practice dying. And this isn't just Greek wisdom. This is actually, this is our Catholic tradition. This is something that you have inherited as a Catholic.

It goes back to our Jewish roots. And it's the concept that is in the Old Testament of the concept of first fruits. So if you ever heard of the first fruits, right? The idea behind it is whatever fruit comes first, goes right to God. So if you are raising animals and you have, you know, cows, the firstborn calf,

that one, it gets sacrificed to those. Lord. If you're raising sheep, the first lamb gets sacrificed to the Lord, firstborn lamb, firstborn goat gets sacrificed to the Lord. Or if you're rating crops, like the first 10% of your grapes go right to God. First 10% of, that's the tide, the 10% of, that first 10% of your grain, of your barley, of whatever it is you're growing, that first 10% goes right to God. And it's not because God needs grapes. He doesn't need those things. It's because you take something valuable. And before you're safe, you give it away. You take something that means a lot to you, and before you're secure, you give it away.

So here's the firstborn lamb. I don't know if there's going to be a secondborn. Before there's the guarantee, I give away that firstborn. Here's the first 10% of the crops. I don't know if there's going to be another 90. Before that guarantee, I give it away. When I'm doing it, when I'm doing that, the first fruits thing is I'm trusting God with it. In fact, what I'm doing is I'm working against the reflex to grasp.

It's teaching me to let go. when I do that, I'm learning to lose. When I do that, I'm learning actually to die to fear. Learning to die to grasping. I'm learning to die to myself. And in fact, when I do that, I'm learning how to love. I want to say that again, when I'm willing to give that 10%, when I'm willing to give that thing that's valuable to me,

before there's a guarantee, I'm learning how to love. Last week, you might remember this. The gospel reading was God, Jesus, saying that the great commandment of all the commandments is love God with everything you've got, right? your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love God with all you've got. And we might say, I love that. I love that commandment. I want to love God with everything. And then you just like sit down like, here I go. That is not how we love God with everything. How we love God with everything is we give him something. Say that again. How you love God with everything is you give him something.

Because love that doesn't cost anything is very, very cheap. Love that doesn't cost even the first fruits or the first 10% is very, very cheap. And so what do we say? We say, I'm going to give God my first fruits. So that's what alms are. Right off the top. 10%, you might not have crops. You might not raise goats. First 10% of my paycheck that goes right to God. Or even when you make the decision, like I'm going to pray 20 minutes every day this week. Make that decision. That's my tithe. That's what I'm giving to God. Before there's a guarantee that'll have enough time, I won't have too much homework. I'm going to guarantee give to God this 10th. percent. Or maybe it's, you know how to serve and you're like, okay, I know there's an opportunity

to serve coming up this Saturday. So that's what I'm going to do, from 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock. I'm going to serve. And that basically is giving God your first routine. It's interesting. You know what the church calls these first fruits? The church calls doing this kind of thing, doing fasting, doing penances, praying. The church calls those things mortifications. Maybe you've heard that word before. Mortification comes from the Latin, right? The Spanish root, right, Morir, means death. A mortician? Someone who deals with death.

Immortification is what? It's a death. If you want to do what Plato said, practice dying, we do what the Catholic Church has taught us for 2,000 years. We just practiced dying. The widow in the gospel today.

What does she do? She gives these two small coins, and that was her whole, Jesus even says, her whole livelihood, meaning this marks her death. But here's the creature. thing. Those two coins, externally insignificant, those two coins are eternally irreplaceable.

Those two coins would not make a dent in the treasury, but those two coins made all the difference with her soul. Those two coins, externally insignificant, but eternally irreplaceable. And so we have our first fruits, right? That whole notion of, I plan to give my first fruits. And so my invitation this week is to plan to give your first fruits. What are your first fruits that you're actually going to give the Lord. So plan, where am I going to give of my money? Where am I going to give of my time? We're going to take time aside and say,

okay, Lord, you get this kind of, you get me during this prayer. Like maybe it's, I'm going to pray 20 minutes a day. Maybe it's, I'm going to go to mass three times this week. But it means I'm going to decide where to die. I think that's what it is to give first fruits. But I got to say there's another kind of dying. So the church talks about active mortifications.

Those are the ones you chose. They planned for. I'm going to do such and such. I'm going to give this. But the church also talks about a thing called passive mortifications. So active mortifications are the ones you choose. Passive mortifications are the ones that choose you.

And I don't know of any greater passive mortification, at least for me, than I'll just call it interruptions. I don't plan on them. I'm dumb. I should plan on them. I don't plan on them. And they cost a lot.

And every single time I'm interrupted, it's like death. or it's either resentment. But that's the key here. Because more often than not, interruptions take us by surprise. We never planned on them.

And so we look at this. We say, I didn't plan on getting sick. Okay, but I'm going to say yes to it. I didn't plan on getting injured. I didn't plan on getting delayed. I didn't plan on the pipes bursting because it was so cold. I didn't plan on my roommate needing

and get picked up in the middle of the night. I didn't plan on having a child with special needs. I didn't plan on a pandemic. You know, it's fascinating because to offer these to God is to be in the exact place of the woman in the first reading and the woman in the gospel. So I didn't plan on this, but here's my last bit of oil. I didn't plan on this, but here's the last little bit of flour. I didn't plan on this, but here's my last two pennies. Externally insignificant, eternally irreplaceable. What we plan to give, those are our first fruits. Those things that are asked of us, those are our final fruits.

both of them teach us how to lose. Both of them teach us how to die. This is the last thing. We can't avoid it. We can't avoid dying. But we can prepare for it. We can actually practice for it. And so we practice for it.

It's not just saying, like, I have a strong determination. I'm going to deny myself these things. It's actually about being a gift. It's not just saying, I'm not going to do this thing. It's about saying, into your hands, Father, I give you my tithe. It's about saying, into your hands, Father, I give you my time.

It's about showing up for prayer and saying, God, this is my gift to you. Into your hand's to you. Into your hand, father, this is my gift. Into your hands, this is my frustration. Into your hands, father. I sacrifice this little thing. So last week we talked about a man named St. Louis Martin and his wife, St. Zeli Martin,

and their daughter, St. Therese, when she was a kid, she used to love figs because she lived back in the day and they didn't have Snickers yet. And so she just, she loved figs. And so she would regularly just say, as a young girl, today I'm not going to eat figs for you, Jesus. I think, what, what is that even going to do? A little 12-year-old girl in France, not eating, not eating figs,

completely externally insignificant, but eternally irreplaceable. And the same thing is true when you get stuck behind someone in traffic and say, okay, into your hands, father, I give you this frustration. When you lose someone, you say, into your hands, father, I give you this grief. When those things get taken from you and say,

okay, into your hands, father, I give you this loss. When you feel defeated and you say, okay, into your hands, father, I give you this defeat. So that when the day comes, when literally everything is taken, you can say, into your hands, father, I give you my spirit, because you will. you will lose everything.

These two truths are going to be true for you. You will die, and it will come sooner than you think. But the amazing thing is you can be ready. You can practice dying, and you can learn how to lose.