Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 11/14/21 Always Forward. Never Back.

Episode Date: November 16, 2021

Homily from the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time. The struggle doesn't change the destination. The struggle is the way. When we are in the middle of a journey...or the middle of life...we will encounter obstacles. In that encounter with obstacles, we will be tempted to go back. But it is necessary to ask “what is God asking of me right now?” Mass Readings from November 14th, 2021: Deuteronomy 12:1-3 Psalms 16:5, 8-11Hebrews 10:11-14, 18 Mark 13:24-32

Hi, this is Father Mike Schmidt. I just want to take a moment before this homily to thank you and to recognize the fact that if you have been listening to these homilies, whether this is your first one ever or maybe you've been listening for years. It's just, it means something for me. It means that you're part of this community. The community we have here on the campus at the University of Minnesota, Duluth has been an incredible gift to me. And it's provided me an opportunity to just be in so many people's lives over the course of the last. This is almost, I think, I think, my 17th year over the last 17 years.

It's been a gift. But also, it's been a gift to be able to record these homilies and to share them online and to recognize that not only are their former students who listen to these homilies, but also people that have never been to Duluth or people who have never been to Minnesota are part of this community of people listening to these homilies. Hopefully they've been a blessing to you. They've been a blessing a gift for me to be able to pray about and to work on and to be able to to speak and to share with you all.

So I just want to say thank you. This November 18th, this week, is our give to the Mac State. It's the one day year that we have chosen in the last 17 years have chosen to ask people for help. Ministry to college students is an incredible gift. It's also a challenge, of course, but it's an incredible gift.

And one of the many challenges is that the people that we're serving don't often have enough funds on their own to help us keep serving them. And so we rely upon the journey. generosity of people like you, people who have been blessed by our ministry and say, I believe in this. I believe in reaching out to college students. I believe in the power of Jesus Christ to change their lives. And so if that convicts you, if that's something you want to be part of this November 18th, this week, but actually it's all of November. We have gift to the max day. It's basically

gift to the max month. We have someone who's been an incredibly, incredibly generous who has offered $250,000 matching gift this month, particularly on November 18th. That means basically, if you give a dollar, it's worth $2. If you give $5, it's worth $10. And that's how math works. Because this person has been so generous, we have the potential to really just move forward in serving the students here at the University of Minnesota Duluth. You might think, well, why would you need that much? Well, because we have some things in the works that I will not yet reveal to you about. I can't yet reveal what we've got in the works. But there are some big projects and big plans that are coming down the pipe. And I just wanted to let you know that this is a great

opportunity to assist us if you want to assist us. If you don't, would you please pray for us? If you don't want to give anything financially, oh, please know that we still love you and we still pray for you. All we ask is that, all I ask, is that you simply pray for us and for the ministry that God is doing the work that he's doing in lives of students here on this campus. It has been an incredible gift to not only serve them, but also hopefully in these homilies to serve you. So please know that regardless of November 18th, if you want to support us financially, that would be I would help us so much. But even if you don't, please know that you are loved.

Please know that you matter. And please know that your prayers are worth everything. Thank you so much. And I hope you enjoy this homily. God bless. So this is that time of year where there's a nice, in the semester, I would say this. This is that time of year where there's a break coming up, which is nice.

But it also means that, I don't know, I think for a lot of us, for a lot of people, real as well, where maybe the beginning of the semester was one of those situations where it's like, okay, this is fun. College is fun. You're cruising along and all of a sudden everything's due right now. Like everything is due. It's not like one at a time. It's everything is coming to do right now. And this is the time, this is that season for a lot of people in their lives, especially in college. When things get tough. You know, again, it's one of those things in life. It happens a ton or you're trucking along, you're cruising along,

and all of a sudden, you just hit that obstacle, you hit that roadblock, you hit that struggle. And I think it's interesting. I look at myself and I realize that, I think it's funny where whenever it happens in my life, and it happens throughout all of life, that my temptation, of course, when I hit that obstacle, when I hit that struggle, is I think, let's go back.

I just want to go back. Right? I want to go back to before. and so many of us experienced that exact temptation. I just want to go back to before, whatever the before is. I want to go back to, like, before COVID, right? I want to go back if you have kids. Like, I want to go back to before kids.

Some of you are like, yes, please, Lord, is that possible? No, it's not. Or maybe now, you know, I talked to our graduates who have big kid jobs, right? Where they're like, they expect me to go to work in the morning and stay there, the entire day. I want to go back. Or even our seniors right now who are like, man, I remember

all these projects, senior design, whatever else there is, all these hours you have to get in. Like, I want to go back. Remember your freshman year, that first year where it's just like, this is, again, college is fun. This is easy.

I want to go back to then. Or maybe it's your first year. You know, like, I want to go back to when my mom made my food instead of the D.C. Like, the D.C. is fine dining, but nothing. You know, I just, so many areas of our lives.

when it gets hard, when it gets tough, I just want to go back to before. I want to go back to before it got tough. I want to go back to before life got difficult. I want to go back to before. I felt all this pressure. Here's the thing. We're heading somewhere. You're on the way.

And now there are so many obstacles. There are so many struggles. There's so many roadblocks. I just want to go back. I think it's interesting that in the first reading, it's the book of Daniel chapter 12. The prophet Daniel, he says, there will be a time. And he says, there will be a time that's unsurpassed. tribulation, a time unsurpassed in distress.

Like never before. You think about, for the Jewish people, that's who he's talking to. There'll be a time for you, the chosen people of God, a time unsurpassed in distress. Do you think maybe that was the Babylonian exile? That was really difficult. Maybe it's the Roman persecution. Maybe it's even more recently, it was the Holocaust. And yet we recognize that what Daniel is saying is that time, no matter how bad it's been for the chosen people of God, it still hasn't been the worst.

You know, I think an optimist and a pessimist, they can say the exact same things and make mean two different things. Like, the optimist can look at life and say, well, it can always be worse. And the pessimists can look at life and say, it can always be worse. And in this case, the pessimist is right. Daniel is saying, it can and will get worse.

Do you think this is bad? It will get worse. And that's not just for the chosen people of God of Israel. It's also for the Christians. I mean, Jesus in the gospel today, what does he say? He says, there will be a time. that is coming when there will be a tribulation that is like no other. Jesus is making it very clear for us Christians, he's saying basically, is going to get worse before it gets better.

And again, I don't know about you, but I hear that and I'm like, well then in that case, let's just not go forward. Let's go back. Why move forward if it's going to get worse? But that's where we're headed. Jesus says the time of tribulation. And that word tribulation is so interesting. It's just, you know, I looked it up. It means a severe trial or a severe test. In fact, the word tribulation comes from a word that means crushing.

Jesus is saying there's a time that's coming that's going to be crushing. And maybe, I don't know, maybe you could look at your life right now and say, I think I'm in that time. Because you could be in that moment right now. You could be in that season right now. Like, I'm in a season of crushing. Because, yeah, it started out fine. I thought it was on the way.

And all of a sudden I just hit this obstacle. All of a sudden I just hit these struggles. And it is hard. And I'm beginning to question. And I'm being crushed. And I just want to go back. You know, in the first book of Samuel, it's fascinating. If you know what I think about the book of judges,

the book of judges, it's a time in Israel's history where it says there's no king. There's no ruler, there's no leader. And so there's just chaos. If you ever want to read a story of just the messiness and brokenness of humanity, read the book of judges, and you just realize that it gets really bad. At the end of the whole thing, there's this line that says, in those days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. it was a mess.

So after that, people of Israel say, we want a king. So they go to the prophet Samuel and say, Samuel, we want a king. And Samuel says, no, no, God's going to be your king. And they're like, that's not good enough. We want a human king that we can like, you know, do stuff with. And so Samuel says, fine. And he chooses this, he goes to this young man named Saul

of the tribe of Benjamin of the son of Kish. And he says to Saul, the Lord has chosen you to be the first king of Israel. and then he actually anoints him to be the king of Israel. And then he says, even if you doubt this, if you doubt the words of the prophet, Samuel, there will be a couple of signs, like two or three signs after this. Here's what the signs will be. They're going to happen to you to prove, to confirm to you that this is the path.

This is the way God wants you to walk. And so Saul goes off and those three signs, they happen. So if Saul needs proof that he's on the right path, he's got abundant proof. And so then what Samuel does is Samuel says, okay I'm going to announce the new king to all the 12 tribes of Israel so he gathers them all they come from all over the place all over the land of Israel

and he says okay we're going to figure this out the new king is coming from not this tribe not that tribe from the tribe of Benjamin bam and then not from whatever family in the tribe of it's coming from the family of Kish bam and his name is and he basically has like this curtain it's in my imagination it's not real but he has this curtain is like and his name is

King Saul and he pulls back the curtain and there's no one there and no one can find Saul And they realize, Saul ran away. So Samuel, the prophet, asks God, where's the new king? And God reveals to him, he says, he's hiding amongst the luggage. Here's Saul. If you needed someone who knew, without a doubt, he's on the path.

God wants him to be on. It's Saul. He's been, the prophet spoke over him. The prophet anointed him. He gave him all these signs. And yet, Saul realizes, I don't know if I want to be king. That sounds hard. So what's he do?

He just wants to go back. So many times in our lives, that's it. You can be on the right path. You're doing exactly what the Lord wants you to do, but he hit this obstacle. We think maybe I should just go back. In fact, even the second reading today, Hebrews chapter 10.

What happens? The author to the Hebrews says, you know, every single day, the priests get up and they offer sacrifice in morning and evening. They offer sacrifice in the temple at 9 a.m. and at 3 p.m. every single day. and those sacrifices don't do anything. But then he goes on to say,

but Jesus Christ, when he offered himself, he took away all those sacrifices because basically Jesus' offering of himself accomplished what all of those sacrifices could never accomplish. And yet, you want to go back to those sacrifices. You know, if you get to chapter 13 of Hebrews, you realize the reason why the author

wrote the entire letter to the Hebrews is because there were a bunch of Jews who became Christians who when things got tough for Christians, they said, let's just go back. Let's go back to the old way of worship. Let's go back to the old way of life. This is difficult.

We know that Jesus is the Savior. We know that He's the Lord, but now it's tough. Now we're experiencing struggle. So something must be wrong. We're now experiencing struggle, so something must be wrong. Here's what we have to realize. Obstacles don't always mean that something has gone wrong. The reality of struggling doesn't mean that this is the end.

the reality of struggling doesn't mean that it's time to go back. Sometimes what obstacles mean is it means it's time to fight. Sometimes having struggles in your life, what that means is it's time to struggle. Because sometimes the struggle is there because you need the struggle. I'm going to say that again. Sometimes the struggle is there in your life because you need the struggle. So not only was I praying about First Samuel and about Hebrews. I was also praying about butterflies recently, as one does.

And just you know how the process is. the third grade. You know that here's a caterpillar that makes a cocoon, goes into a chrysalis. At some point, the butterfly inside the cocoon struggles. And there's this little, like, kind of like breathing hole out of the, in the cocoon. And if you came upon that cocoon, if you have a soft heart, you probably have soft hearts. If you had a soft heart, you'd see that the butterfly is struggling to get out of this cocoon. And you might be tempted to take a little, you know, blade of some sort and just like open up a little hole. Like basically help the butterfly out of the cocoon. If you did that, if you help the butterfly out of the cocoon, you'd be hurting it for the

rest of its life. Because the butterfly has to fight to get out of the cocoon or the butterfly will never be able to fly. It has to fight or it will never be able to fly. And still, of course, we can still think, I remember back when things were easy in your life, like where you can look at our lives and say, but I remember when things were easy. Do you remember when things are easy? Because I can think that, and I can hear people say that. I want to go back to when things were easy. And I don't know if that's true. Because I think the truth is, they weren't. I think the truth is, things were never easy. You're just stronger now. Things were never easy in your life. You're just stronger now. So you look back on them and you're like, oh, that's no

problem. Remember, you guys, remember the drama, the agony of the weekly spelling test? That, like, the night before, you're like, I have 25 words to get through. And they're going to test this and what am I going to do? I'm going to fail. And my life will be over. I'll be kicked out of school, homeless. Like, I'll never get married. What? You're in second grade. It's okay. Now, we look back on that. It only seems easy now because you're stronger now than you were then. It only seems easy now because you're stronger than you were then. And you are stronger now for only one reason because you went through the struggle. The only reason it seems easy now is because you're stronger. And the only reason you're

stronger now is because you went through the struggle, because you went through the obstacle, because you went through the tribulation. Our lives, man, our lives are littered with obstacles and they're littered with roadblocks. No, those are two different things. obstacles are different than roadblocks. Hit an obstacle, that means, okay, it's time to engage. It's time to fight this. It's time to work through it. Sometimes though we hit roadblocks.

In roadblocks, you don't always blast through them. Sometimes roadblocks mean, oh, I need to reroute. Obstacles, yeah, maybe fight through. Roblox, okay, this apparently is not the exact direction. They mean different things, but neither of them mean it's time to go back. Because obstacles and roadblocks, they don't change the destination. They only change the way to the destination.

The obstacles in your life, the struggles in your life, the roadblocks in your life, they don't change the destination. They only change the way to the... In fact, they might, more accurately, they don't... What they change is, they change the way we thought we would get to the destination. I thought it would be like this, and the roadblock shows me, nope. I thought it would be like that. And the obstacle shows me, nope.

Because we realize the struggle is not the end. the struggle is the way. The tribulation is necessary. The struggle is necessary. In fact, something happens in the struggle that could not happen without the struggle. In our lives, something happens in the struggle

that could not happen without the struggle. And so when the temptation is, go back, we have to say, Siempre Adelante. Because you need to speak Spanish because there's this man, his name is Father Unipero Serra. And those are his words. Father Unipero Serra, he was a Spanish, Franciscan priest living in Spain.

That's where the Spanish people live. And he worked at a university, and he had a cushy, comfortable life, because I've got to tell you guys, there's nothing more cushy, nothing more comfortable than being a priest working at a university. It is the easiest thing. So at some point, Father Unipero says, you know what? He had this zeal, this fire for the Lord, this deal to bring the gospel to the new world. So he left his comfort, left Spain, left everyone he knew. At one point, he actually wrote a letter to his mom and dad saying, I know that my departure means you will never see me again in this life.

He left everything. You know, it's interesting. Recently, Father Junipero Serra has come under criticism because his leaving Spain and coming to the new world and evangelizing the indigenous people seems to be, in some people's minds, that seems to be oppressive. and yet if you know anything about Father Sarah, you know that he wouldn't even begin a mission on an indigenous tribe's land

unless he got their permission to do a mission. That Father Yupero, at one point, some indigenous people killed his brothers. They killed his Franciscan brothers, other priests, and the Spanish government was going to execute those men. Father Yuna Perro walked hundreds of miles to appeal to the Spanish government to spare these men's lives because he loved them that much,

even though they killed his brothers. Father Unipero, He was firmly believed, as the Catholic Church teaches, that you can never force a person to convert. As John Paul II says, the gospel is never imposed, it's always proposed. Father Unipero, Sarah, he loved the indigenous people. They loved him. In fact, when he died, they said that people walked from hundreds of miles, thousands of people walked from hundreds of miles just to weep at his casket. And this man, he left Spain and he got to the New World.

At one point, he had to walk a 300-mile trek. and so they offered him a mule or a donkey to ride, and he said, I don't know, St. Francis wouldn't ride a donkey, he'd walk, so I'm going to walk. That's great, heroic. Hours into the walk, he got bit by a mosquito, which we know nothing about. He got bit by a mosquito that became infected and made him crippled the rest of his life. Made it difficult for him to walk the rest of his life. Now, here's me, if I was Father Sarah, leaving my cushy university job in Spain,

coming to the New World, I step off hours into this 300-mile hike, I get bit by my mosquito so I can't hardly walk. I'm like, I think it's time to go back. I think this is a sign, this obstacle, this is a sign I need to go home. Years later, eight years after this, Father Junipero had walked already thousands of miles up and down the California coast and this leg would kept bothering him and they needed to move out the next day and his group said, Father, you can't come with us because you can't walk and he went to the person who was taking care of the mules and he said,

okay, you take care of mules. If they had this injury, what would you do for them? And the guy said, Father, I'm not a surgeon. I just take care of mules. And he says, fine, what would you do for a mule? And he told him what to do. And father did it that night, and the next day he could walk. No better than a donkey. But the young man said, Father, why did you just go back? And to that, Father Unipero, Sarah said these words. always forward, never back. This is motto. When you hit the obstacle, always forward, always forward, never back. When he hit the struggle, always forward, never back. And not because he's a superhero, but because his life was marked by this one question. Whenever he hit an obstacle, whenever he was in the middle of a

struggle, he asked this question. The question was simple. It was simply this. What is God asking of me right now. This is the last thing. That question marked his life. In the middle of a struggle, simply asked the question, what is God asking of me right now? In that struggle, in that place of crushing, in that place of pressure, what is God asking of me right now? You know that this is the question Jesus asked as well. We all know that the night before Jesus died, he went into a particular garden, the garden had a name. And the name of the garden was Githsemini. I don't know if you know this. That word Getsemini is a Hebrew word that means place of crushing. Gat shamanim means olive press, or olive being crushed. And the last night of his life, before his biggest struggle,

before the biggest obstacle he would ever face, Jesus Christ went into the place of crushing. And there he said the exact same thing that Father Unipero said. Father, not my will, but your will be done. What is God asking of me right now? You know, going through obstacles and rerouting around roadblocks doesn't change the destination. It just simply changes the way we get to the destination. So what do we do?

We go always forward. Never back, not ignoring the obstacles, not destroying roadblocks, not being superheroes. But knowing that the tribulation is not the end. It's the way. that the obstacle is not the end, it's the way. And the struggle is not the end. The struggle is the way.

As we move always forward and never back.