Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 11/13/22 Something Other Than God

Episode Date: November 12, 2022

To “give to the max” and support UMD Newman Catholic Campus Ministries, find out more here! Join us for a “Day of Thanks” on Nov. 17 at 7pm CT on the Sundays with Ascension YouTube channel! Subscribe to the channel here! Homily from the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time. We get what we've chosen. The ending of a story reveals what kind of story it is. Regardless of how we start and how we proceed, we can choose to have a tragic story...or we can choose to have a love story. The determining factor is not the amount of sorrow or loss in our lives, but whether we choose God...or choose something other than God. Mass Readings from November 13, 2022: Malachi 3:19-20 Psalms 98:5-92 Thessalonians 3:7-12 Luke 21:5-19

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz. I want to thank you so much for listening to these homilies. It has been an incredible gift that goes all the way back, I think, to 2007 when we started this homily podcast. One of the things I just want to let you know is upcoming this week, November 17th, is our give to the Max Day. Basically, it is the day that kind of keeps the lights on when it comes to the Newman Catholic Campus Ministries at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Now, any person who has been blessed by this ministry or believes in this ministry to college students on campus can support us. And I'm so grateful for all the support and all the prayers over the years. But this upcoming November 17th, in fact, this entire month of November, we have a matching gift. And the matching gift is incredible.

If you give this month, if you give to the end of the year, even, that gift will be doubled up to $250,000, which is just bananas and bonkers and incredible. Now, that's the generosity of other people. But I just want to invite you to participate in this. What I mean is this ministry to college students that we are engaged in on a day by day basis. is literally changing lives. If you ever go and visit our social media page or our web page, you can see that the testimonies of people who, when they got to campus, either they were raised Catholic and fallen away,

or they had never encountered Jesus Christ. They had never even heard of the Lord in a real way. And their lives were transformed by the encounter with Jesus. And the incredible thing is now we have almost like generations of college students who have encountered Christ on campus here at UMD and have gone off into the world. So I am so grateful. If you want to be part of that mission,

If you don't mind, please pray for our ministry. It's a challenge at times, but it is an incredible grace-filled challenge. Also, if you're interested in supporting this ministry, not only with prayers, but also with the financial gift, you go to bulldog catholic.org and click the donate page. Or you can go to givemn.combeys ministries at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Again, either boldycatholic.org or give mn, like Minnesota, give mn.org. this November 17th, this Thursday, we have also a virtual front pew day of thanks. If you want to go online at 7 p.m. Central Time and kind of just get to know some of the missionaries we have, get to know some of the students who have been impacted by the gospel on campus.

You can go to Sundays with Ascension YouTube channel and find us there. I'm so grateful. Thank you so much for your prayers. I hope this homily and all these homilies are a blessing to you to keep you going in your journey and you're getting closer and closer to the Lord. and find yourself knowing that you belong in the church. You belong to the family of God. Thank you so much and God bless.

The Lord be with you. You're reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke, chapter 21 verses 5 through 19. While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, all that you see here, the days will come when there will not be left one stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.

Then they asked him, teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen? He answered, see that you not be deceived. For many will come in my name saying, I am he, and the time has come. Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified, for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end. Then he said to them, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

there will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place, and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky. Before all this happens, however, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and to prisons. They will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking

that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist, or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. And they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair on your head will be destroyed by your perseverance. You will secure your lives, the gospel of the Lord. So I was kind of doing the math here, and if you are a student at UMD, you have 20 more days of class. Actually, 18 more days of class because of Thanksgiving break, which is, I don't know if you're like sweet or if you're like, oh, no. Because that could be one of those situations, right, where you're just like, shoot. I mean, even if, maybe this was your first semester. And you're like,

this is my first semester at college. This is great. First semester, so good. Great start. Or maybe a first semester, I did not learn how to go to college until just last week. Like, one of those kind of situations where it might have been a great start, might have been a really, really bad start. or even maybe we have a bunch of people who are going to be graduating in 20 plus days. And if you can think back to like how did that college start? Was that a great start? Was that a bad start? How did that middle time go? Was it really good?

Was it bad? Here we are coming to the end. And it doesn't even matter. If you're not even in college right now, all of us are in some place, some season, some chapter in our lives. And the good news is even if you only have 18 days, there's still time. Like the story isn't over yet. The clock hasn't counted all the way down yet. You know, last week, we talked about how the journey matters, right?

We talked about being on the road and carrying the fire into the darkness and how what we do on the road matters. What we do on the journey matters. And that's completely true. But this weekend, I want to talk about this, the fact that the end also matters. Like, not just the journey, but also how we finish. That matters. In fact, I would say this. I would say the end is so important that the end reveals what kind of story

we just read. Like the end reveals what kind of story it is. The end reveals what kind of life I just live. So again, last week I talked about two different movies. One was the Book of Eli. The other was the road in dark, dark depressing movies. So I thought, let's talk about love stories. So two stories this week.

One is the classic tale of two Starbucks lovers, star cross lovers of Romeo and Juliet, right? So you have classic William Shakespeare, love story. Here's the Montague's and the Capulets. Here's Romeo and Juliet. They fall in love with each other, and they're so enamored, so in love with each other, that they're willing to even die for the other. Like, what an incredible love story.

The other love story is one that is just as profound, just as deep, just as literally incredible, called The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. So if you know this story, you know this story, like I'm not recommending either of them, but here we go. So if you know the story of the notebook, you have this story of this tempestuous love affair between this guy and this gal. The whole story is told, if you've ever seen the movie, or read the book, it's told in reverse, right?

So it's at the end of their lives, and here's the man, the husband, and he spends the whole movie reading this notebook to his wife who has dementia, that she's forgotten who she is, she's forgotten who he is, and she's forgotten that they are married to each other. And so he's reading to her their story.

And it's incredible because here's this incredible love story. Now, the thing about these two stories is both of them are marked by loss. Both of them are marked by grief. Both of them are marked by suffering. And one of them is a love story. And the other is a tragedy. Both of them have suffering.

Again, both of them have incredible loss. One of them is a love story, and one of them is a tragedy. The tragedy is Romeo and Juliet. In fact, here's my hot take on William Shakespeare right now. I would maintain that Romeo and Juliet isn't even a love story. In fact, if you ever drill down, and I have some reasons I can give you my notes, footnot, it's my MLA format. But one of the reasons is because William Shakespeare has written a number of stories that look like love stories on the surface, but actually are all about the

fickleness of love. In fact, go back and reread Romeo and Juliet. When the story opens up, Romeo is absolutely head over heels in love, but not for Juliet. He's in love for a girl named Rosalind. And he cannot stop talking about Rosalind. Everyone's getting sick of Romeo talking about Rosalind. And then on a Sunday night, he goes to a party and meets Juliet. Here's the thing. spoiler, heads up, don't go to parties on Sunday night, go to church instead. So, back to our story, Romeo meets Juliet on a Sunday night. They get married the next day. They get married on a Monday.

They consummate their relationship that night, and they don't see each other until they're both dead on Thursday. Remember how this story goes down? This is, again, this is Shakespeare talking about the fickleness of marriage that you can be, or fickleness of love, how you can be so in love one day, one moment, one hour, and the next hour, are like, oh my gosh, this person. In fact, you know how the story ends. Juliet, she's going to get married to someone else. And so she takes this drug that makes her look like she's dead.

Romeo comes upon her. He thinks she's dead. He kills himself. She makes up, realizes he's dead. She kills herself. The end. It's called a tragedy for a reason. On the other hand, in the notebook,

here's this whole story of loss, right? The whole story of grief, this whole story of this man who loves this woman. Again, they had fickle, they had a tempestuous relationship at the beginning. But here they are at the end. and he's reading this story to her. And at one moment, at the end of the movie, at the end of the book, she looks up and she realizes, she remembers who she is.

At one moment, she remembers that, wait a second, this is the man. At one moment, she looks up and she realizes, wait, that's our story. And they only have that moment for a moment. And then they lose it. But that's the love story. See, here's the difference between any story in a tragedy. The mark of a tragedy is this. It didn't have to be this way.

The mark of a tragedy is it could have been otherwise. The mark of a tragedy is it could have been different. You know, the Bible, the Bible starts out with a tragedy. The Bible begins with the tragedy. Not the first two chapters. The first two chapters, God makes the world, makes it good. He makes human beings. He makes us in relationship with him, with each other, with ourselves,

we're whole. Everything's good. Everything's beautiful. and then the end of chapter two happens and the beginning of chapter three happens. And what happens, right? The serpent comes into the garden. Goes up to the woman and to the man

and this is the beginning of the tragedy because we realize, why is this a tragedy? Because with that fall, with us breaking the world, it didn't have to happen. It didn't have to be this way. Why? Because here's Adam and Eve. They could have called out. They could have said, God, help us.

They knew God. They could have even helped each other. Eve could have leaned on Adam. Adam could have leaned on Eve. they could have actually fought for each other. They didn't. You know, simply, they could have even just, to the serpent, they could have just said no.

The reason why the Bible begins with the tragedy is because we realize here is this beautiful but broken world that we're living in. And it didn't have to be this way. Here's this world that is, again, good, but so broken. And this brokenness, it could have been otherwise. And it all comes down to a stinking piece of fruit.

Like, isn't that the ridiculous part of the whole thing? Like, you're just like, but it's, And it was like probably people say like it's a pomegranate, like a fig, something like it's like, oh, really? The world broken over a fig? I mean, it's not even like a good fruit. But we think like if we think like all of this is tragedy happening over a piece of fruit, we realize that it actually what the fruit symbolizes. The fruit symbolizes a choice. And what that choice is what the heart of every tragedy is a choice.

The heart of every tragic ending is to choose something other than God. That's it. that's what the fruit represents. Because I mean, think about this, Adam and Eve, put it in the garden, and God says, go to town, this all is for yours. There's one rule. You had one job. You have one rule, and that is, don't eat that fruit over there.

Otherwise, everything else is yours. And so the fruit represents choosing something other than God. We realize this, no matter how good the beginning is, no matter how good the start is, no matter how well we're doing on the road, we can turn a great story. we can turn a great story into a tragedy by simply that one choice, choosing something other than God. I mean, and this happens, this happens even with incredible lives. In fact, there's this man, you know, the second letter today is from the St. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians.

So I was thinking about the Thessalonians and thinking about, there's a reference connected to this letter. There's a kind of Demos. I don't know if you ever come upon Demos in the New Testament. He's referenced three times. in the New Testament in Paul's letters. First time he's referenced in St. Paul's letter to the Colossians where St. Paul says, our dear friend Luke, the doctor, right? The Gospel of Luke, that guy.

Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Deimos send their greetings. So who Deimos is, is a partner with Paul in evangelizing. He's a missionary with Paul. He's someone who's encountered Jesus and his life been completely changed. And you have the Apostle Paul who has said, Deimos, hey, I want you to come and spread the gospel with me and with Luke, who wrote the gospel of Luke. at the time, it's in the book, St. Paul's letter to Philemon, where he says,

Epipras is my fellow prisoner. He sends you greetings. And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demos, and Luke, my fellow workers. So not only do you have Luke and Paul, he also have Mark, the guy who wrote the gospel of Mark. So you have three of the people who wrote most of the New Testament, and Demos is one of them. Like this, you imagine that when the apostle, Paul, says, hey, I want, I want you to come. with me as we traveled the known world and just bring not only the gospel but bring miracles, bring healing, bring grace to the entire known world. I mean, that would be amazing. That is an incredible life. But the last reference we have of Deimos is in the last letter of St. Paul.

In fact, it's the last chapter of the last letter we have of St. Paul, his second letter to Timothy where he says this, Deimos has deserted me because he became enamored. with the things of this world and he's gone to Thessalonica. DeMas has deserted me. Here's a man who is incredible. Here's a man who's called to greatness. Here's a man who's been given absolutely everything. And the last word we have about him is DeMas has deserted me because he's become enamored with this present world

and he's gone to Thessalonica. I have to ask the question, how often could this be us? Like how often is this us? How often is this me? Where here's God who's like, listen, I've gotten everything for you. I've done absolutely everything. And all you have to do is say yes. Like here is the gift of life.

Here's the gift of love. Here's the gift of an access to the father. And how many of us are just willing to simply choose something other than God? That here is God who's done so much for us. He's written an incredible story. But I choose tragedy because I'm choosing something other than God. Again, this is nothing new. The whole Bible actually is full of stories like this.

There's a story actually in Genesis of two brothers. They're twin brothers. They're the sons of Isaac. So you probably know this story. of Esau and Jacob. So the twin brothers, and Esau's born a little bit ahead of Jacob, so he gets the birthright. He's considered the older brother, even though they're twins.

And so as the story unfolds, it turns out that Esau is like a hunter. He likes going out into the wilderness, where Jacob's kind of a homebody, and he stays home with mom. And there's a scene where they've both grown up, they're young men, and Issa is coming in from the field, coming in from hunting, he hasn't gotten anything, some hunter.

Anyways, at the outskirts of the camp, here is Jacob. And Jacob has what it says in the Bible, he's got this pot of red stuff. It could be like red porridge or red stew or something like this. And Esau sees the red stuff. And he says to Jacob, hey, give me some of that red stuff. And Jacob says, okay, as long as you give me your birthright. Now think about this. Esau, you have the inheritance.

You have the lion's share. Like everything dad has is coming to you. So if you give that to me, I'll give you some red stuff. Esau says, fine, I don't care, you can have it. And so, Jacob hands over, the red stuff. And Issa goes on his way. He exchanged his inheritance for stew. And again, that seems ridiculous, and it is.

But we do the same thing all of the time. All of the time. Every time we choose sin, what I'm saying is, God, I know you've given me eternal life. I know you've given me access to you. I know you've given me every great gift. joy and peace and hope. But you know, I'd rather have the red stuff. I'd rather have the piece of fruit. I'd become enamored with the present world or just give me some red stuff. Because this isn't,

here's the thing. Sin is not just breaking a rule. It's saying, I want something other than God. That's it. I just want something other than God. And that's how you write a tragic ending. And it's tragic because it doesn't have to be that way. It's tragic because it could have been otherwise. You know, I've been praying a lot recently. I don't know why, but he's come up in my prayer a lot. Judas has come up in my prayer a lot. So I've been just thinking about him a lot

because I realize that, you know, even growing up, hearing about Judas, I always pictured Judas as like clearly the villain. Like if you saw a lineup of all 12 of the apostles, you go like, oh, they're nice, they're nice, like, oh, that's the bad one. You know, like, he'd have this, like, curly mustache. Very obviously, he's always, you know, twiddling it and like, okay, yeah, villain. because we, that's why I think about mustache people, but nonetheless. Just kidding.

But what if, I was praying with this, what if, what if Judas was like the fun one? Like we came to the apostles. Like what if Judas was like the goofball of the group? And everyone's like, oh man, Jesus, I'm so glad that you chose Judas to be part of us because he is so much fun to have around. Like he was always bringing the party, always bringing the fun, always bringing the laughs. And then you just loved having Judas around. What if that, what if he was like that?

or maybe not that. Maybe he was the, what if Judas was the serious one? Like, you know, Jesus put him in charge of the money. So maybe it's like, yeah, because Judas keeps us tied down. You know, we're all these apostles going off this way and that way. It's trying to heal everybody and like bring grace. And Judas is like, listen, you guys. Okay, we have to build a tent tonight. So let's calm down. What if Judas was like the pious one? What do I mean? What if Judas was like the holy one? Which is not beyond imagination. honestly think about this what if judas was the one who was always praying what if judas was the one who's always quoting the bible what if judas was the one that like whenever the apostles got together and they were talking about like

who's going to like be a saint who's the one that people are going to remember like oh man judas like how could you go wrong with judas he's your guy because he wasn't clearly a villain He was called by Jesus and got to see the miracle of Christ. He got to see the mercy of Jesus in action every single day for two and a half to three years. His story was amazing. And his story is a tragedy. And it's not a tragedy because he betrayed Jesus, although that is a tragedy. He could have been otherwise.

He didn't have to do it. You know, after he betrayed, his story was still being written. Judas could have run back to the Lord. He could have raced back to Jesus. But he doesn't. We know this. Judas hangs himself. He stays away from Jesus. That's the tragic ending. And it didn't have to be that way. I mean, to think about this, it's a tragedy. It could have been otherwise. In fact, if he had come back to Jesus, we know what would have happened. You and I know what would have happened if Judas would have come back to Jesus. We would have churches around the world named after St. Judas, the apostle, or named after St. Judas, the repentant. But his story was a tragedy. Why? Because he chose something other than God.

And here's the thing. It's crazy. We get what we've chosen. Here's God who gives us this incredible freedom. We can choose him or we can choose something other than him. And it is bananas to realize that God actually lets us get what we've chosen. So I have to ask myself the question, what am I choosing? Am I choosing God or am I choosing something other than God?

In fact, I might not know. You might be in a place right now where like, You bring up an interesting question, Father. Like, I don't exactly know what I'm choosing with my life. That's one of the reasons why Scripture keeps talking about the day of the Lord. He says, the day of the Lord will reveal what we've chosen. There's a St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, it's chapter 3, where it says this, that as we're living our lives, we're building something.

As we're living our lives, we're building something. He says this, if anyone builds on this foundation, the foundation of Jesus, if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, or with wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will come to the light, for the day will reveal it. So what am I building with? What am I choosing?

Am I building with gold, silver, precious stones, or am I building with wood, hay, or straw? It was on to say, it will be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each one's work. If the work stands, that person will receive a wage. But if someone's work is burned up, that one will suffer loss.

The person will be saved, but only as through fire. It's one of the reasons that the day of the Lord will reveal this. It'll purify this. But I don't know if I want to wait for that day. I don't know about you, but I don't want to wait until the end to know what I've chosen. It's one of the reasons why I keep encouraging everyone. Please take advantage of going to adoration. When we go to adoration, we have adoration almost every single day over at Newman.

When we go to adoration, it's like a pre-day of the Lord. It's like practice for standing in front of Jesus, for kneeling or sitting in front of Jesus. Why? Why? Because in the presence of Jesus, in the Eucharist, he reveals to us what we've chosen. He reveals to us what we're holding on to. And he doesn't want to burn us up. But if I'm holding on to this so tightly, what he wants to burn up will actually burn me up. The first reading today from Malachi, that's what it says.

It says that the day of the Lord will come and its rays will burn away wickedness, but its rays will also heal righteousness. I know we know this. You know the story of Lord of the Rings. kind of the most popular story in the last 100 years in English. So, Lord of the Rings. Quick little recap is there's this ring called the Ring of Power. And the whole mission, the ring symbolizes sin in the world.

The ring symbolizes evil in the world. And so the mission of the whole series trilogy of books is to take that ring and destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom. So it's all nerdy, it's all fun. And we're finally at the very end of the story, I'm swindling this one for you too. At the end of this, here's Ferto and Sam, and they get all the way to the fires of Mount Doom

and they can't almost bring themselves to throw this into the fire. But then what happens is there's this creature named Ghalm, and this creature has been corrupted by the ring for hundreds of years. And he can't let go of the ring. So what happens is, as the ring is being thrown into the fire, the fire that's supposed to destroy the ring ends up destroying Ghalem. It wasn't supposed to destroy Gullum, but since he won't let go of this thing,

it also destroys him. And this is the same thing for us. When we go before the Lord in adoration, go before the Lord in the Eucharist. He reveals to us what we're holding on to. He reveals to us what we've chosen. It reveals to us, have I chosen God or have I chosen something other than God?

And this is the last thing. And as we said, we get what we've chosen, which is really hard news, but also really, really good news. I can choose God or I can choose something other than God. That is really hard news. because I can live my life one way and I can choose. We have the ability to choose whether or not our life is a tragedy. Because if I choose something other than God, he lets me have it.

You know, it's a myth that God throws people into hell. He's so angry at him that he just cast him into hell. That's not true. He does allow us to choose it, though. We can choose God, meaning choose heaven. Or we can do something other than God, meaning I choose life without God. I choose eternity without God because I've chosen something other than God. He lets us have what we've chosen.

But the great news is, everyone in this church tonight, you have the ability to actually choose God. Like everyone in this church tonight, you have the ability to choose him. Because God's grace is yours. And he doesn't just give you the opportunity. He actually even gives us the power tonight

to say, actually, Jesus, I choose you. And here's the incredible news. we get what we've chosen. So even if your life right now, or your chapter of your life right now, has been in one of sorrow and sadness, it's been more notebook than anything else, it can end as a love story. That's why there's this thing called the grace of final perseverance.

Here's what I'm going to invite everyone to do this week, if not the rest of your life. Pray for this grace of final perseverance. Jesus even says in the gospel, this last line tonight, he says, by your perseverance, you will secure your lives. The grace of final perseverance is the grace given by God, completely a gift by God, that enables us to choose Jesus in the last moment of our life. We pray for it every time we pray at the Hail Mary, don't we?

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death this week, and for the rest of your life, here's my prayer for you. Pray for that grace of final perseverance. Pray that no matter what the rest of your story looks like, whether that is one of tragedy, one of sorrow, one of grief, one of loss, one of joy, one of love. Pray that at the last moment of your life,

God pray for the grace that he lets you choose him, that he helps you choose him. Because we get what we've chosen. And your life and my life, we could choose something other than God, and our life will have a tragic ending. But we can also choose God. And our life would not be a tragedy.

It would be a love story. And you can choose. We can choose. that our life actually has a beautiful ending.