Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 11/10/24 Made for Worship: Kingdom Sacrifice

Episode Date: November 9, 2024

Mark Your Calendars! Donate Today! Give to the Max Day: Thursday, November 21st, 2024 http://www.bulldogcatholic.org https://www.givemn.org/organization/Newman-Catholic-Campus-Ministries-At-Umd Day of Thanks Livestream Event: Thursday, November 21st, 2024 7PM CST http://www.youtube.com/ascensionpresents Homily from the Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time. It is truly right and just...worship sets us free. Does God need our worship? He does not. But we do. Worship sets us free from slavery and opens us up to love. Mass Readings from November 10, 2024: 1 Kings 17:10-16 Psalms 146:7-10Hebrews 9:24-28 Mark 12:38-44

Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz. You know, years ago, back in 2007, we started this weekly homily podcast as an opportunity to extend the ministry that we do here at Bulldye Catholic at the University of Minnesota Duluth to our students who have graduated or to our students who have over their summer break or to our students over their Christmas break. And now here we are, in 2024, extending our ministry to you, to the world or whoever wants to listen. I'm so grateful that you have listened to these homilies.

and I'm also so grateful to you for being an extension of our ministry. Maybe you've been blessed by these homilies. Maybe they've touched your life. Maybe they've offered you some kind of support, some kind of solace, some kind of direction in your life. Maybe they've helped you get closer to the Lord. And maybe you've shared these homilies with your children or family members or friends and they've grown closer to the Lord through this podcast.

If this ministry has blessed you in any way, I would just ask you, I would invite you to consider being a part of blessing this ministry on Thursday, November 21st. Again, the date is Thursday, November 21st. There's an event here in Minnesota called Give to the Max Day. It's kind of the one day of the year that we ask people who have been blessed

by our ministry to, I don't want to say return the favor, but to consider offering a financial donation to Bolte Catholic. Now, you might have heard, we have some other exciting projects that are going to be happening in the next couple months and years, but your Give to the Max donation

would be used for the day-to-day operations and the ongoing ministry are reaching out to evangelize, college students on multiple college campuses here in Duluth, Minnesota. So if you're interested at all, you can follow the link in the description of this podcast. You can visit boldog catholic.org or you can visit givmn.org. That's Minnesota, mn.mn.givmn.org. And when you're there, you can just search for Newman Catholic Campus Ministries at UMD. It would be an incredible blessing for us. Again, go to

bulldogcatholic.org or to givemn.org. Both websites have links to donate. It would be incredible. For the fourth year in a row, this is big news. For the fourth year in a row, we have someone who's generously willing to match your gift up to $250,000, which again, gives us the chance to reach out to as many college students as we possibly can. And by extension, to reach out to people across the country and around the world. Please join us. You're also invited to be part of a live streaming Q&A event with me on Thursday, November 21st,

at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time. The event will be hosted on the Ascension Presents, YouTube. channel, which you can find at YouTube.com slash Ascensure Presents. You'll have the chance to meet our students, our staff. There'll also be an opportunity for Q&A with me. Maybe it's a question about the Bible. Maybe it's a question with the Catholicism, or maybe it's just a you question. But please join us on November 21st at 7 p.m. at YouTube.com slash ascension presents. Again, please thank you. Please receive our thanks. And please keep us in your prayers and know that we're praying for you. God bless.

The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark. Chapter 12 verses 38 through 44 In the course of his teaching, Jesus said to the crowds, Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings and marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets. They devour the houses of widows and as a pretext recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe,

condemnation. He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling of his disciples to himself, he said to them, Amen. I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury, for they have all contributed from their surplus wealth. but she from her poverty has contributed all she had her whole livelihood. The Gospel of the Lord. Why should you have a seat? So a number of weeks ago we started this series Made for Worship.

And one of the questions that comes up, comes up every time we talk about worship and the necessity for worship, that fact we're made for worship, the question comes up, why does God need that? I don't know if you've ever asked that question. When it comes to worship, why does God need the attention? that why does, heart of worship is sacrifice? Why does God need the sacrifice?

Heart of religion is worship. Why does God need the worship? The short answer is he doesn't. The short answer is God does not need this at all. In fact, the scripture even says this. God says, in scripture, he says, do you think that I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats? He's like, basically, I don't need that at all.

Worship is not for God. Even the sacrifice is not for God because he doesn't need it. We do. He doesn't need worship. I do. So the year after I graduated, college, I was missionary for just one year in Central America. And it was incredible experience.

I worked with the Society of Our Lady of Most Holy Trinity, and it was remarkable. At one point, I worked with a bunch of other young adults who also after college had gone down and were working at this mission. And we took a long weekend trip on a bus ride. And it was a bus ride that was, I had no idea how long it was going to be. It was going to be between anywhere from 12 to 24 hours on this bus.

And I had food in my bag. And it was one of those situations where I was saving it for myself. Another way to say it is I was hiding it from everyone else. And I remember being on this bus with a little bit of food in my bag. And there's this other man that I was a missionary with. His name is Mike Rota. Mike now is a PhD in philosophy, he teaches at the University of St. Thomas and St. Paul. But at that time, Mike and I were both just bunch of, I think, a couple of 22-year-old,

23-year-old guys. And I was hiding my food in my bag. And Mike Rota had a bag of sweetbread. And he was not just offering it to the other missionaries. He was walking up and down the bus aisle offering anybody. Is anyone want any bread? Does anyone want any bread? And I remember being struck by this thought, no, this might be the only food I get that I have to hold on to mind because I might not have another chance. There might not be any more food. And Mike was like, no, here, does anyone want my food? And again, I was struck

by this reality that I was so small. And Mike was not. The reality, I was trapped. And Mike was free. Because my thought was this, I might not get anymore. This might be all I have. I might not get another chance. And that thought, that holding that desire to grasp, that goes all the way back to the very beginning.

You know the beginning of the Bible, right after the first sin. And Adam and Eve have to leave the garden. They have a couple of kids, Cain and Abel. I don't know if you know this, but the very first image of worship we have is those two brothers. And we have it. we have, that Cain brings his offering, and Cain offers his sacrifice, right?

Kane offers his worship. And Abel also offers his worship, but it says very clearly in Scripture that God did not accept Cain's offering, excepted Abel's offering. We don't know exactly why, but it does say in the text that Cain just gave an offering and Abel give an offering from his firstlings, the firstlings of his flock, basically this idea that Abel offered his first fruits. Remember this. In the whole series you're talking about

the heart of religion is worship. That our hearts are made for worship and the heart of worship is sacrifice and that a thing is worth what someone is willing to sacrifice for it. So it's curious, here is Abel who brings forth his first fruits and his offerings accepted.

Here's Kane who just offers whatever he has, his leftovers, whatever he doesn't need. And the offering isn't acceptable. I think it's one of the reasons why throughout the rest of the Bible, in the Old Testament at least, God asks for the first fruits. So whatever first fruits of your crops, that first tenth, that belongs to God. If you're a merchant, the first fruits, your income, that first tenth belongs to God. The yield of your harvest, that first fruits, that first tenth goes to God.

In fact, even the firstborn of your flocks, right? If you had a goat or you had a bowl, you had a cow, or whatever the thing you had, that firstborn of those animals, you'd give it to God. Why? A couple reasons. Number one is because a thing is worth what someone is willing to sacrifice for it. So you give God the best, give them the very first. And the second is because that's an act of trust. That to give God the first fruits, first fruits of your income, first fruits of your animals, the first fruits of your day is to make an act of trust.

Because why? Because I'm going to give this away. and I don't know if I'm going to get any more. I'm going to give away this animal that's been born. I'm going to sacrifice this, and I don't know if I'll get another one. There might not be another one, which is one of the reasons why the two women, the woman of widow of Zarifath in the first reading,

and the woman at the temple, the widow at the temple in the gospel, are incredible. For them, it's not even about first-fruits them. You have the widow in the temple putting in the two small coins, her whole livelihood, realizing she might not get any more. But then also the widow of Zarifath, who, man, when Elijah talks to her, she's going to give everything away knowing that she's not going to get anything more. Which is, they're amazing.

These heroic women, God asks for first fruits, but these two amazing and heroic women, they give away their final fruits. And that's the kind of giving that touches the heart. And the reality is how deeply this goes, because why? a thing is worth what someone is willing to sacrifice for that thing. And so all points back to the Mass, right? That this thing that we're doing right now, that this worship that we do at the Mass

is not about what we get, even though we get Jesus himself. Worship is always. It's always about what we give. So here's the question. When we come to Mass, if we're going to pray the Mass, we're not just have hollow worship where we're just passive observers, we're here not to get, we're here to give,

then the question is, what do I give? When it comes to Mass, do I give my best? Or do I give God whatever's left? Do I give God my first fruits, or do I give God my leftovers? Do I give God what's most valuable to me? Or do I give God worship when it's convenient? Like, even when it comes to getting to Mass.

Like, what's the standard? I think this is an important question for us to ask. When it comes to even getting to Sunday Mass, what is our standard? Because sometimes it's like, well, it's slightly more inconvenient, so I can't make it. I remember years ago we had a young woman she was working with us. She had graduated college, and she was working on our campus with the Newman Center. And so she was Catholic. Now, she's also really incredibly adventurous, young woman.

And so she literally traveled the world, rock climbing. And she would come back and tell all of her stories about rock climbing around the world. And at one point, she shared the story that when I think she was still in college and she traveled to Thailand. And one long weekend, she went to an island off the coast of Thailand. And she was like, well, shoot, there's no Catholic Mass on this island. And the closest Catholic Mass, she said, I would have to get up at 4 in the morning, take a ferry over to Thailand, then take a two-hour bus ride to get to Mass. And I just, I guess I can't make it.

That's she said, I guess I can't make it. And then her conscience was alive, and her conscience kind of got the Lord pricked her conscience. And she thought, wait a second. If I had to get up at 4 in the morning and take a ferry and take a 2-hour bus ride to climb a certain route that I was really excited about, I would 100% to get up at 4 in the morning and take the ferry and take the 2-hour bus ride to climb that route. So it's not that I can't go to Mass. It's that I don't value Mass enough. So that Sunday morning, she got up at 4 in the morning and took the ferry, took the 2-R bus, and made it to Mass.

Why? Because this is the reality. It might cost us something. worship, true worship is going to cost us something. Our temptation is to grasp, but we're invited to trust the Lord. And not only that, but even more than trust God to trust God. Because at the Mass, every Mass, we're reminded why we're here. And what being here does for us. It doesn't just help us help us grow in trust.

It helps us do two other things, at least. So, participation in this moment. I will say these words and just say what you know you need to say. So, the Lord be with you. With your spirit. Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right and just.

And then the priest says this. We say those words all the time. Every mass we say those exact same words. And the priest says, it is truly right and just. Our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks. Now, pause on that. Have you ever, ever stopped and said when you said, it is right and just? And the priest says, it is truly right and just.

Our duty and our salvation. Pause and ask the question, wait. How is it right and just? How is it our duty and our salvation? It's just to be here. It is actually our salvation to do what we're doing. Okay, remember, you're kingdom priests. Pay attention to the prayers, kingdom priests.

It is just. What does that mean? Have you ever considered that worship as an act of justice? That worship to be deep and profound, in fact, in some ways, doesn't have to even be anything more than justice. What's justice? Justice is giving someone what you owe them or giving someone their due.

And so here's God. Well, we realize this, that everything comes from God, that every good thing, it's all his. Just to pause for a second and realize every good thing is his, it all comes from him, and God is so good that he wants us to have it. He's made this entire world, it's his, but he's so good he wants us to have it. And justice would say this. Justice would say, God, if I had a heart of justice, I would say, God, if you want any of it,

it's yours. Take it back. God, if you want any of it back, it is completely yours. And yet, he doesn't ask for all of that back. He just says, give me this. Give me this worship. Because it's just just. Here's a guy.

I came across his missionary. He had traveled to Cobbreds, which is a life team camp down in Georgia. And his whole life, he was a missionary. He was a foreign missionary. And he was giving his witness, his testimony about life in the mission. and a life lived bringing the gospel to as many people as he possibly could. And at one point, someone asked him about how did you get to that place where you knew you were called to be a missionary? And what was it that moved you to be a missionary?

And he told them, he said, actually what it was is justice. He said, I love Jesus. Don't get me wrong. I love Jesus. But he said, but it wasn't even love that first moved me to be a missionary. It was the recognition that I owe him my life. that my salvation, that he won for me on the cross and gave me through the church, he said, I owe it to him to do all that I can so that others can know this as well.

He was being a missionary wasn't originally motivated by love, by justice. Our worship, we talked about last week, is all about love. The true worship is, grows us in love, but also true worship is simply just. And it's our salvation. If we think about this, remember at the man, this, what we're doing here is how we were saved. It says in the second reading today that that self-offering of the son to the father, once for all. That one sacrifice, once for all, is the one sacrifice that we are represented with and that we are participating in at every single mass.

Remember, Jesus, on the cross, what's the moment that saved us? When on the cross, he says, Father, your hands, I can bit my spirit. That same moment is captured and represented us. Again, one sacrifice, once for all, that sacrifice is captured and represented to us when the priest holds up, the ministerial priest, holds up the body and blood of Christ and says, through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever. That moment is the moment that glorifies the Father.

It's the moment that saves the world. And this is our salvation. This is actually our salvation. Why? Because true worship sets us free. Remember, we're made for worship. And without God, we will find something to worship or we will create something to worship. And all of those things, every one of those things that we find, every one of those things that we create, all of them are too small.

And that's what we know this for ourselves, right? Sports, I'm going to worship at the altar of whatever the sport is, whether I participate in it or just cheer people on. Success or wealth, we worship looks. We worship reputation. We can worship our friends. We make them the center of our lives and sacrifice. Remember, a thing is worth what we're willing to sacrifice for it. We can worship family.

In this season, we can worship politics. We can worship ourselves. You know, it's funny. C.S. Lewis wrote about this. And he had this line, he said, We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when at the same time,

infinite joy is offered to us. He said, we're like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. We are fine being trapped by grasping after the stuff we think we cannot live without. True worship sets us free from that. To be able to say, God, I give you everything. That's why the widow of Zarathathath, she's free.

That's why the widow in the temple is free. That's why Mike wrote out on that bus in Central America. He was free. Why? Because they could give everything. They were free to give everything. Question, are you that free? Am I that free? I'm afraid that I'm not.

But I know I'm called to be. I know that you're called to be. I know we're all called to be. And worship is what frees us. Because remember, if you're baptized, you're a kingdom priest. You were anointed at your baptism, a king or queen in the father's household.

You're anointed at a prophet to be able to speak God's words to this world. you are also anointed a priest. Remember, Christ has made us a nation of priests. You are a kingdom priest. Remember, what's the priest do? Preach priest offers the sacrifice. But here's the crazy thing.

Not only do you as kingdom priests, join your prayers to the ministerial priest at the altar, who's united to Jesus Christ's great high priest. And what's to do every single time? The Father's glorified and the world is sanctified. All those things happen. But there's something unique. If you're willing to be a kingdom priest, you also have to be willing to be something else.

So Fulton Sheen back in the day, he wrote a book called About the Priesthood. And a priest is not his own, is the name of the book. And in it, it was very convicting because I got it in my last year of seminary before I was ordained a priest. And he wrote exactly, he said, So many young men are so excited to be ordained ministerial priests

because they cannot wait to offer the sacrifice. And I'm like, yeah, me too, bro. And he said, but here's the thing. Jesus Christ was not merely the priest offering the sacrifice. Jesus Christ is also the sacrifice. So he said, young men, if you're willing and eager to offer the sacrifice like Jesus, you also have to be willing to be the sacrifice like Jesus.

Here my brothers and sisters, if you are eager and willing, yes, I finally know that I'm a kingdom priest, anointed at my baptism, I've wasted my priesthood. Well, if you're eager to offer the sacrifice as a kingdom priest, united with the ministerial priest, you also have to be willing to be a kingdom sacrifice. And we offer Jesus.

He's the one sacrifice once for all, but we also offer ourselves. So what do we do we do at every Mass? How do we pray the Mass in such a way that we're actually engaged in it and we're not just passive observers? Well, one is, bring yourself to the altar with Jesus. Really, every week.

Every new time you come before the Lord to pray, say, okay, I'm coming to Mass with busted ankle. Okay, Lord, I'm placing that, placing my pain on the altar. Maybe you have a heartbreak, a sadness, a grief. Okay, Lord, that's how I'm placing that sadness, that part of myself on the altar. Maybe you're disappointed or discouraged. There's some kind of failure in your life. Okay, God, that's what I'm placing on your altar.

You're just tired. Maybe you have the experience of joy. Maybe the experience is of winning. It could be of losing. But however it is, you show up as a kingdom priest. Let that also be you showing up as a kingdom sacrifice. You know, it's funny, we put on a camp every summer. It's a two-week, well, two, one-week camps.

And I was talking to one of our adult counselors. She's a college student right now. And she said, she's like, I get it. I get that the Mass is its own prayer, it's his own sacrifice. I know why we do it for justice and salvation and for God, we trust Him, first fruits, all the things. She said, but there's something different about Mass at camp and Mass at home. So she went to go to Daily Mass at camp, then she went back to her hometown and went to Daily Mass there. and she's like, I know it's the same.

I mean, this is all of this. Like, I know it's the same. It doesn't feel the same. That there's really good music. There's good preaching at camp. You're surrounded by a bunch of people who are excited to worship the Lord and sometimes you go to daily mass or Sunday Mass and there's no music or there's bad music

and there's no preaching or bad preaching. And sometimes people around us don't seem all that excited about worshiping the Lord. That's not a bad thing. In fact, there's a man in J.R.R. Tolkien. who wrote the Lord of the Rings, he was writing a letter to his son about going to Mass. And he actually encouraged his son. He said, you know what, seven days a week is the frequency is of the highest effect, he said. So go as often as you can.

But he said this. He said, seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. Also, he said, can I recommend this as an exercise, which alas, only too easy to find the opportunity for. He said, make your communion, go to Mass, in circumstances that affront your taste. Like, not the church you really, really like, but some, the one that's, he goes on to say, choose a snuffling or gabbling priest. I had to look up with the word gabbling. Gabbling means to talk rapidly or unintelligibly, so you've chosen the right place.

Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud or vulgar friar. And a church full of the usual bourgeoisie crowd, ill-behaved children from those who yell at those, from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who, the moment that the tabernacle is open, sit back and yawn. We know them. Open-necked and dirty youths. Those with on hair both unkempt and uncovered, go to communion with them and pray for them. He said, it will be just the same or better than that as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man and shared by a few devout and decorous people. The reality, of course, is that God can use it all. I mean, think it's

Think about, I bring up a topic at the end here. Kids at Mass. Not just kids at Mass. Kids at Mass are awesome. Noisy kids at Mass. Like, that can be, in some of my saltier moments, I'm like, okay, let's, it's a rough thing to get through. Someone who's trying to get through their talk and get through their homily on a Sunday with the kids at Mass. And I know parents at this point.

We're like, what we are doing our best. I'm like, oh, no, but listen, I know. Grandparents, like, listen, Jesus said, let the little kids come onto me. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's kind of hard. It's hard for everybody. Hard especially for parents. I mean, I have a sister-in-law who, when my brother was deployed,

my brother was deployed for years over the course of their marriage. And there were so many Sundays when she by herself had to take their four kids to Mass, including one of their children whose special needs. And she said, I just, she said, I don't know the last time that I actually heard a homily. I don't know the last time I ever left Mass feeling like I prayed. And if you're a parent and you have children, that might be your experience. And again, this is not me calling it and out. If the church is the family, this is just like family talk.

And the reality and the family talk is you sacrifice a lot. And that's the point. What is the heart of religion? It's worship. What is the heart of worship? Sacrifice. You moms and dads going to Mass and not getting anything out of the Mass, you sacrifice a lot. You have to realize this. Sacrifice is not always calm and recollected.

Christ's sacrifice on Calvary? You know, the sacrifice that glorified the Father and saved the world? That was messy. It was noisy. It was distracted. I can't, I don't imagine anyone at the crucifixion when God reconciled humanity to God himself. I can't imagine anyone was recollected. I can't imagine anyone could hold the thought for longer than two seconds in their and yet they offered it. Jesus himself on the cross, he offered it. Like the widow, Azaraphat and the widow in the temple, they offered it. Like every parent who goes to Mass and is distracted, like all the people around the parents who are distracted,

you can offer it all. That's the beauty of the fact that you are a kingdom priest and a kingdom sacrifice. That's the beauty of the fact that it is right and just our duty and our salvation. to simply offer it all. So offer the distraction and offer the struggle. And offer the times of reflection and times of contemplation.

Offer it all, even if you can't see and you can't hear and you can't focus. Offer whatever it is you have. Because you're a kingdom priest and you're a kingdom sacrifice. And our temptation is to grasp. I don't know if there'll be any left. I don't know if there be any more.

I don't know if there be another. but as a kingdom priest and kingdom sacrifice you are made to worship and true worship sets us free