Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 11/25/18 Come to the Altar: Kingdom Priesthood

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

Homily from the Solemnity of Christ the King. Don't waste your priesthood. Jesus is the one eternal High Priest. He has called certain men to participate in His priesthood in a unique way. But He has also extended a share in His priesthood to all believers so that the Father may be glorified and the world redeemed when the sacrifice is offered throughout the world. Mass Readings from November 25, 2018: Daniel 7:13-14 Psalms 93:1, 1-2, 5Revelation 1:5-8 John 18:33-37 Download the Homily Study

So I think, I'm afraid Google knows me a little too well. That algorithm that, like, things pop up, you know, that you, like, you didn't look for, but they know you want to know about is scary. So I found out that there is a history of, like, sorry, let me restart. I was directed by the internet to a webpage that was full of strange exercise devices throughout history. And I was like, I've never looked for that, but it's. It came looking for me and it was fascinating because Google knows me and knows that I would click on that and would be entertained for a long time and then I bring it up in a homily. So there were all of these things.

In fact, there's this history of if you want to be healthy, get electrocuted. It's basically to sum up this thing. It's like there's electric blankets, just lie in the blanket and it'll send you shock waves. And those shock waves will get your fit. You know, wear this thing that will send electromagnetic shock through your body and those Electricity, that electricity will make you healthy. It doesn't work, apparently, but people thought so. In fact, one of my two favorites that they used to do.

One was called Xander's Horse Simulator Machine. You don't have a horse to ride yourself? Those cowboys and cowgirls are pretty fit, but you don't have a horse. You're not a cowboy, cowgirl. You can sit on a device that you don't even have to rock it. It rocks you, and you get to stabilize yourself on top of it, and you know what happens? You become super healthy.

That was the idea. Like, you get to, you just, the idea is you get to sit there, and what happens is you get healthy. Just by sitting there. Imagine the fitness craze that swept the United States when this came out. But in fact, there was another invention that actually I saw on this webpage that I've used before, because my grandma had it, and maybe your grandmother's had this kind of thing. It's basically a metal platform you stand on, and from the metal platform, there's a belt, and you put the canvas belt around your waist, and all the belt does is go back and forth.

like this, but it shakes you. And the idea is that it would shake the fat off your body, and you become healthy in the process. It would increase circulation, and now you are Mr. Olympia. And I remember going to my grandma's house, and like we would, grandkids would fight over the, like, let's get on the exercise machine, exercise machine. We liked it because if you talked as you did it,

it would like make your voice vibrate kind of a thing. But it doesn't work. If you bought this and you tried it, you'd be wasting your time. You'd be wasting your money. You know, I saw all these and I realized they still make them. In fact, coming home from my parents' places last weekend, when I was 15, my dad is a pretty fit guy.

And so I thought, my dad is fit. He wants to get fitter. So I bought him for Christmas. Maybe you've seen these before. It's like a neoprene stretchy thing that you have velcro on one side, and the idea is you wrap it around your waist and you velcro it to your body and you wear it underneath their clothes, and the idea is it melts away the fat that's underneath the neoprene. Basically no, it just makes you sweaty under that.

and sweat are not the same thing. But you can just wear this and you don't have to do anything and you become healthier. Again, waste, a waste of time, a waste of money. And we can know this and still do the same thing because I've been over to the gym and I know you've been over to the gym too. And you've walked past those roll of recumbent bikes. You know the bikes that you sit back on? No, they are fine if you actually put the time into it. If you put the effort into it, how many times you walk by the recumbent bikes and someone's sitting on there and that And they're reading something or watching the little TV and all they're doing is basically letting the pedals move their feet.

Have you ever seen anyone like this? They're not sweating. They're not talking. They're not breathing heavy. They're easy to have it. You can have an easy conversation. It's not a workout, but they think they're working out. Unless that's your cool down, that's a waste of time right there.

We do this thing all of the time. We don't just do it with exercise. We do it with, oh my gosh, how many, how many of you said tonight, like, oh, I study the whole weekend. I got to see my family for a little bit, but then I just went to the same. to the library, spent the whole weekend in the library. And if you actually totaled up the amount of time you spent working on your work, it was like maybe 35 minutes, but like, no, I was there the whole weekend.

In fact, I spent a lot of time in the coffee shop working on my stuff too. And from my, I like to sit in the loft at Dun Brothers, right, so I can look down on people. There's a fine line between being a creeper and just being observant. But I think I'm on the observant side. I think you're a creeper based on how long you look and how many times we're return to looking at someone. So I'm on the observant side. And what I observe from my nest up in the loft is when people settle themselves in and they have, I worked at Dun Brothers for five hours. What happens is they get themselves all settled and then pop up social media first for the

first hour. And you know, I go back to my work because I'm not creeper. And then later on, look back down, oh, they're shopping for something now. And go back to my work, still not a creeper. And then later on, look back, oh, they're, you know, communicating with someone through FaceTime or through Messenger or whatever the thing is. Because we can say, we can convince ourselves, Like, no, I spent five hours working on stuff in the coffee shop when I spent about 15 minutes actually doing my work in the coffee shop. We so easily waste our opportunities. We can so easily waste the chance we have.

And we look back on it and go, I spent all the time in the gym, it was a wasted time. Spent all the time in the library, it was wasted time. Spent all that time in the coffee shop was a waste of time. I spent all that time at mass and it was wasted time. I recently came across a story of a young religious sister named Sister Claire. Amazing story of this. young nun. She grew up in Ireland, and she grew up in a neighborhood that was very rough, family super rough, who she had rejected Christ, rejected Christianity, rejected Catholicism for a long time.

And at one point, when Christ finally won her heart over, she became absolutely convinced that he loved her absolutely. She became absolutely convinced that he loved her definitively. And she's like, well, in that case, I'm going to be a religious sister. She's going to, I'm going to be his bride. And so just to watch this documentary, it blew my heart opening because it was just one of these, like, man, one of her lines was she died when she was 32 in an earthquake in Ecuador. Before she died, though, she said these words, she said, to die without having given all of myself, that's my fear. That's my only fear. To die without having given all of myself is the fear. It's the only fear. To look back and realize, I just wasted that. I've just wasted that opportunity

to give myself. I wasted the opportunity to love Christ. I wasted the opportunity to offer up my life, Jesus' life. To die without having given all of myself, that's the fear. It's the only fear. I know a couple weeks ago I mentioned, as part of the series, you know, come to the altar, I mentioned my ordination date. I think I've kind of made a crack about like June 6, 2003, in case you wanted to send me an ordination card, I hate my ordination day. Here's why. I don't hate it because I don't wish I was a priest. I am so grateful to the Lord. I never, I don't want to be anything else other than a priest for the rest of my life. But I don't like my ordination anniversary because whenever it rolls around, I have this weird fear that I talk to the Lord and I ask

the Lord, I wasted my priesthood. Like if you've given me an opportunity, I've just wasted it. Not because I don't show up for stuff. You guys, I'm here. Like, not because I don't do the thing. My fear is that I'll show up and do it, but I'm not doing that how he wants me to do it. Like, I show up and I do it, but I'm not giving the way he wants me to give. Show up to the gym, and you do it. Not the way it makes a difference. Show up to the library, to the coffee shop, and you do it, but not the way it makes a difference. I show up to do my priest stuff.

Question, Lord, am I doing it in a way that actually makes a difference? That's the heart of this whole series we've been doing. This is the fourth part of this four-part series, come to the altar. The whole fear I had was that us as Catholics, we come to Mass, and we show up and we do it, but we don't do it in a way that makes a difference. We show up when we do it and we spend all this time. But it's like, but did you give anything? Did I do it the right way?

Do I show up to Mass and I just watch? Or do I show up and I worship? Or do I show up and I give my first fruits that are intentional and consequential? Or do I just kind of give God my leftovers? We talked about last week, do I show up ready to truly present, to present Jesus who is truly present in the Eucharist to the Father? and the power of the Holy Spirit. And do I, is that how I do it?

Or do I just show up and I kind of go along with this? And that's why we've been, why we've had these first three weeks. There's even more. There's even, when it comes to coming to the altar, when it comes to worship, there's even more than we've talked about already. And it has everything to do with the priesthood. It has everything to do with the priesthood. Without the priesthood, we have no Eucharist.

Without the Eucharist, there's nothing to offer the Father. There's no sacrifice. Without the sacrifice, there's no worship. And without worship, this world is lost. Let's go through that again. Without the priesthood, there's no Eucharist. That doesn't happen. If there's no Eucharist, there's nothing to offer to the Father.

There's no sacrifice. And without the sacrifice, there's no worship. And without worship of the Father, the world is lost. So I need to clarify. I said I was afraid. that I was wasting my priesthood. I need to clarify that phrase because I need to nuance it. There's something wrong with the phrase, my priesthood.

I usually ask groups of people this. I will not ask you all this because I don't want to. It's a trick question, and I don't want to like, the person was like, I thought that was right. Here's the answer. The question is, how many priests are there in the world? How many priests are there in the entire world right now? It's a trick question because people are like, I don't know, like a million?

No. Like 100,000? The answer is one. How many priests are there? If anyone ever asks you, how many priests are there? One. Jesus Christ is the one great high priest. He's it. He's it. When it comes to how many priests are there in the world, there's one priest. It is Jesus Christ, our one great high priest. I myself in what they call a ministerial priest. What that means is I participate in his priesthood. He's the one priest. I get to, So I say, waste my priesthood? No, it's not mine. It's I'm wasting his priesthood.

He is the one great high priest, and ministerial priests are those who are called to participate in a unique way in Jesus' priesthood. They're called to share in a unique way in Jesus' priesthood. That we realize in the Bible, that Jesus chose particular men to participate in his priesthood in a unique way. In the end of Matthew's Gospel, Matthew 28, 28, he says, to the disciples, to the apostles, to the first priest. He says, go baptized.

So that's one thing the priests do. In John chapter 20, he says to the apostles, to the priest, he says, those whose sins you forgive are forgiven. Those whose sins you don't forgive are not forgiven. He gives them the ability to forgive sins in his name. He makes a priesthood. In Mark's Gospel, in Luke's Gospel, he sends them out and says, now go out and heal people. He gives them the anointing of the sick.

He commissions them, makes them priests to do the anointing of the sick. And in almost every one of the Gospels, including the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, at the last supper, Jesus makes those apostles, his first priests. When he says, take this all of you, eat of it, this is my body, this is my blood. Now you do this in memory of me. And he commissions them and he gives them the ability to what they call confect the Eucharist, right? To make the Eucharist present, to make Jesus truly present, body, but soul and divinity in what looks like bread in what looks like wine. He says, you do this now. This is your job. Because he's the one

great high priest, but now ministerial priests, that they're ministerial priesthood, you participate in this and you do these things. And it's so crazy because from the very beginning, too, the apostles to realize that was our job. They saw themselves as priests right away. And they also saw themselves as being responsible to pass on that ministerial priesthood. You can see at Acts chapter 6 when they lay hands on certain people. so they can become deacons. You see in Acts chapter 13 when they lay hands on Paul and Barnabas

and they make them, consecrate them to be priests as well? This has been passed on year after year after generation after generation do you get to a schmuck like me. And even having in First Timothy or Second Timothy when Paul says, Timothy, fan it to flame the gift you received

when I laid hands upon you. What's he saying to Timothy? He's what he's saying to Timothy. He said, Timothy, be a priest to those people in Ephesus. Timothy, be a dad to those people. in Ephesus. That's what it is to be a priest. It's to be a dad to them. You know, a crazy thing is, in the recent news,

we have all the terrible stories of, like, really bad priests. You might know some Peters, but we've also found, heard about some Judas'. The good news and bad is Jesus ordained Peter and he ordained Judas. But here's what Augustine said. Back in the 4th century, St. Augustine, he, like, really powerfully said this, because he even, way back, way back then, they had really great priests, and they had some bunch of Judas's as well. And here's what St. Augustine said about this. He said, when Peter baptizes, it's Christ who baptizes.

When Judas baptizes, it is Christ who baptizes. Why? Because how many priests are there? There's one priest. And when the ministerial priest, whether he's a saint or whether he is awful, when he exercises his priesthood, what happens? Jesus is the one who acts. The Father is the one who's glorified. And this world is still transformed. This world is still changed. And here's the crazy thing. I love this.

Why have priests been consecrated to do these things? Why have them been consecrated to baptize, to heal, to forgive sins, to give us the Eucharist, and to offer the sacrifice for you, basically? Basically, they're meant to, the priesthood is meant to be so that you become holy and you bring that holiness to the world. that he's ordained in order to make you holy. He's ordained in order for you to come into contact with God in a way that's unique and completely transforms your life so you can bring that same sanctity into your workplace,

into your family, into your friendships, into your dorms, into your apartments, into wherever you are. Now that's cool. There's still more. The thing is like, that's neat. Like, okay, God, thank you for the priesthood. That's not even the beginning. Because when it comes to, like, worship of God,

How many priests are there? One. I knew you guys had it by now, so I'm comfortable. How many ministerial priests are there? I don't know. Thousands. But look at Revelation Chapter 1. The second reading for today, from the Feast of Christ the King. Jesus Christ establishes a kingdom on this earth. And what does St. John write about in Revelation 1?

He says, you become a kingdom priests for God our Father. That every person in the kingdom is a priest. St. Peter writes about this. letter as well. He says, no, you've become a royal priesthood. That if you've been baptized, you're a priest as well. Let's draw out that. I'm, I get too excited, you guys. Who years baptized? Okay, a couple of you. So, at your baptism, the bishop, priest, or deacon, whoever baptized you, what he did is he put oil on your head and he anointed you. And he said, I anoint you a king or queen. He said, in the kingdom, I anoint you a prophet.

speak God's word, and he said, I anoint you a king. I anoint you a priest. I anoint you a priest. If you've been baptized, you've been consecrated, you've been anointed, you've been set apart to be one of Jesus' kingdom priests. Again, Revelation chapter one, you're a kingdom priest. No, I guess it's different than, different kind of priesthood than the ministerial priest said. It's different kind of priesthood and different kind of degree of priesthood. Here's what I mean, just kind of little feel. on the side. As a priest, you're called to offer forgiveness to those who have hurt you. So if someone's harmed you, you can say in Jesus' name, I forgive you. That's priestly. Now ministerial priest can say, I forgive you of all of your sins in Jesus' name. That's different. As a kingdom priest,

you can heal. In fact, there was a guy in the Twin Cities just last week. He's a lay Catholic, and God has, like, healed people powerfully through his ministry. So you can heal as a kingdom priest. But as a ministerial priest myself, we can heal through the an anointing of the sick in a different way, and to a different degree. And as a ministerial priest, one of the things I do is at the altar, I confect the Eucharist, right, by saying this is my body, this is my blood, and then I offer up the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus to the Father and the power of Holy Spirit. But here is the problem. A lot of times as kingdom priests, we show up and we watch the ministerial priest offer up the sacrifice. and if we're really good kingdom priests, we watch and pay close attention. If we're like really into it,

we watch pay close attention and have all the responses down. But oftentimes what we end up doing is we come to Mass, we watch the priest pray, and you end up wasting your priesthood. Again, the Lord Jesus did not, from all eternity,

call you to be his son and call you to be his daughter, call you to be his priest so you can come to Mass and watch the priest worship. He made you into a church. kingdom priests so you can actually offer up the sacrifice with the priest. But here's the problem. Here's the problem with kind of the modern mass.

We come to Mass and I'm on this side of the altar, right? And so it looks like I'm a talk show at the audience. So you can watch me pray. As you guys watch over here, I'm on this side. But we have every single Monday morning when we have Mass at 8 a.m. on Monday morning over at the house, we have what they call ad-oriented mass, which means that I'm on your side of the altar, and we're all facing the same direction. It's called Ad-orientum, which means to the east.

Now, they said, well, in Takam Vatican, too, didn't they flip that around? No, someone just did that and they wanted to and it was the dumbest thing in the world because wasn't that when the priest turned us back on everyone? No. Having the mass, what we're all facing in the same direction is not the priest turning his back on the people. It's the priest saying, hey, you are kingdom priests.

I am a ministerial priest. Let's offer up the sacrifice of the son to the Father and the Holy Spirit together as Jesus is Christ's priests. But how we have it now is so easy to forget the fact that you're a kingdom priest. because he kneel down and he's watching pray. My invitation for every single one of us

is that you have been called to come to the altar to be a kingdom priest, to offer up the sacrifice with the ministerial priest. Now this is where people say like, okay, Father, thanks for that. Like, I appreciate it. That's your little theory. I know you're one of, I didn't think you're one of those modern priests,

but now I get it. No, this is what the church has been trying to tell you your entire life. The church has been trying to tell us, you your entire life that you're meant to offer the sacrifice with the priest. Why? In a few moments, you'll stand up and I'll say, pray my brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice, what's the next line? And yours. I'm the priest. Y'all, the kingdom priests. Pray my brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father, for the praise and God. And then you

respond with, may the Lord accept the sacrifice to your hands, for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and to get all his holy church. And so we stand up and then what we do, we begin to move into that powerful time of worship. Pray that my sacrifice and yours may glorify the Father and change the world. Why isn't the Father glorified like he should be? Because we show up and we waste our priesthood. Why isn't the world more changed? Because we show up and we waste our priesthood. So how do we do this? How do you not waste your priesthood? There's two quick things.

When is I invite you to pay attention to the words? Realize it's your prayer. To pay attention to the words the ministerial priest is praying at the altar. Don't pray them aloud as well. Pray them in your heart. Those are his lines, you guys. Don't step on his lines. But to pray them in your heart and to realize one thing very powerfully,

it changes everything for me when I realized to whom almost all the prayers in the master directed. I don't know if you ever paid attention that. Have you ever paid attention to, well, to God? Well, no, Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. To whom are almost all the prayers in the Mass directed? To the Father. So we say, Lord, and we're talking to Dad. So my invitation to you is if you're like saying, I'm getting distracted, how do I offer up, how do I not waste my kingdom of priesthood? How would I offer up the sacrifice with the Manasero priest? Realize you're talking to Dad. Realize you're offering up the

sacrifice of the son to the Father, to Dad. The other, second thing is the last thing. Years ago, after I was ordained, I read a book by this phenomenal man named Archbishop Fulton Sheen. The book is called A Priest is Not His Own. It's definitely worth reading, definitely worth reading for anyone, priest or not. At one point in the book, though, Archbishop Sheen, he says, he says when men are ordained to be ministerial priests, so often they're so excited to offer the sacrifice, which is right. It's good. They should be excited to offer the sacrifice. But he says, they often forget that not only did Jesus offer the sacrifice, but Jesus was the sacrifice. He was both the priest and the victim.

And he says, you priests are excited to be priests, but you have to also be just as eager to be the victim. And now my brothers and sisters, as I'm telling you, all this about, like, like the fact that you are kingdom priests and inviting you to never waste your priesthood, what I also have to invite you to do is what Archbishop Sheen invited me to do. To not only go to Mass and offer the sacrifice, but to go to Mass and be the sacrifice. I mean, this is what St. Paul was writing about in Romans chapter 12, verse 1. He said, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Offer your bodies as a spiritual sacrifice.

And the prayers even, the prayers even in the Eucharistic prayer, number three, it even reminds us this. It says, it says, Father, may he make us an eternal offering to you? Like, let us become an eternal offering to you. Eucharistic prayer number four says, may we truly become a living sacrifice in Christ to the praise of your glory. I mean, it's so important that we recognize this, that we are called, that you are called not only to offer the sacrifice, you're called to be the sacrifice, and you've known this your whole life. And the church has been trying to tell you this your whole life too. Just like the church has been trying to tell you that it's my sacrifice and yours,

the church has been trying to tell you that you're meant to actually be the sacrifice as well. Because why? Because when you're baptized, you're like, oh, I mean, I was made into a child of God. Yeah, I knew that. You were. Made into a priest, prophet, and king. Got that check. I was made into, I was reborn. I made to a God's own brought into the church. Yes, absolutely. What's another term we use? For someone who has been baptized,

we call them, they've been made into a temple of the Holy Spirit. You've made into a temple of the Holy Spirit. And so what do you think about when you think of a Temple of the Holy Spirit? What do you think about when you think of a temple? You think, well, that's the place where, you know, the deity, the God lives.

God abides in the temple. So you're a temple of the Holy Spirit means the Holy Spirit dwells inside of you. Absolutely, that's true. It's not false. That's correct. But in the ancient world, temples were not only places where the deity would abide. Temples were principally the places of worship. Temples were principally places of sacrifice.

Temples were places where there was an altar. and you've been made into a temple of the Holy Spirit. You've been made into a kingdom priest, which means what? Which means you're meant to offer the sacrifice, but also means that you're meant to be the sacrifice. This whole series, my whole prayer, oh man, the burden that's been placed in my heart is that you never again,

my prayer is that you never again show up to Mass and just watch, but you show up in worship. My prayer today is that you make the decision. From now on, I will never, ever, ever show up to Mass and waste my priesthood. But to realize that from now on, from now on when I go to Mass, I will offer the sacrifice of the son to the Father

with the ministerial priest. From now on, I will be the sacrifice with the Son to the Father with the ministerial priest. And from now on, I'll never go to Mass again and just watch, but I'll worship. Never go to Mass again and waste my priesthood, but I'll use my priesthood. I'll never go to Mass again and not be the sacrifice. But I will be that sacrifice with Jesus every time you come to the altar.