Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 12/06/20 Legacy

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

Homily from the Second Sunday of Advent. We can’t go back to the beginning of the story, but we can start where we are and change the ending. Saint Peter reveals that the Day is coming when The Story will have been written. On that day, everything will be revealed and we will know God’s hidden role in every moment of The Story…and we will know the truth and consequences of our roles in The Story. We will know our legacy. Mass Readings from December 6, 2020: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11 Psalms 85:9-12, 13-142 Peter 3:8-14 Mark 1:1-8

So, of course, I mentioned at the beginning of Mass, or before Mass started, just the question of, like, if you have a favorite Christmas story, I have been thinking about this because I went and reread the classic Christmas tale, a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and I noticed some stuff. I have a friend, his name's Nick, and Nick says, the last couple years, he rereads it every year, now he has kids, and so he reads it to re-read it to his kids every year. So he got me inspired, and so I reread it myself. And one of the things I noticed, you know, obviously, I don't need to give you the recap of a Christmas carol because you've seen it, you've heard it. But I noticed something I never noticed before. So actually, I will give you a recap. There's this guy. His name's Ebenezer Scrooge.

And we know, right, that this guy is so cruel, he's so heartless, he's so mean, that his name has become synonymous with being cruel, being heartless, being mean, and hating Christmas. I mean, everyone, we've all heard this term that goes back to 1884, bah humbug. And, like, that is, that's some endurance on a saying that none of us actually ever say, unless it's Christmas time. So this character, right, he gets visited on Christmas Eve by a dead man named Jacob Marley, and I always get confused because I always want to say Bob Marley, but it's not that guy. It's his business partner. No, this is the interesting thing that I never realized up until recently, my rereading of this,

is when Scrooge is met by Jacob Marley, this guy has been dead for seven years. And he shows up to Scrooge, and he's dressed in chains, he's clearly tortured and tormented, and he says to Scrooge, like, here's the deal. I'm getting what I, what's just, what's what I deserve because of how I've lived. You've lived even worse, and you're going to get even. worse. And Scrooge's response is kind of like, I'm going to bed. It's like it doesn't even do anything to him. He doesn't like say, oh my gosh, I'll change my ways. In fact, nothing really happens until later on that night, right? He's visited by three spirits. The ghost of Christmas past,

the ghost of Christmas present, and the ghost of Christmas is yet to come. And the interesting thing about this is it isn't, it's not the warning from beyond the dead. It's not the ghost that appears to him. It's not this promise of like, you're going to get tortured. It's when they revealed to him his story that something happens to Scrooge. It's when he sees the story of his present and realizes that I have this nephew named Fred who I've never loved who loves me. But I'm not part of his life. Then he goes back to Christmas past and he sees like his old employer Fezzywig.

Okay, pause on this one. I just want to... I think it's remarkable that in 1884, Charles Dickens makes this character named Feziewig. And like 100 plus years later, Jim Henson, has the Muppets Christmas Carol, right? And he has the character, the person who plays Feziwig is Fossey Bear, and he gets to call him Fuzzywig. You guys, that is proof that God exists and that he loves us very much. Okay, so back to our story. He goes back in Christmas past and he realizes, way to have this employer named Feziewig, not Fossey Wig, and his heart gets melted.

His heart softens, but still, it's not changed until something even more dramatic happens, even more devastating happens that that's when his cold heart is broken, when he sees the ghost of Christmas is yet to come. And what does that spirit show him? That spirit shows him his legacy. His legacy. Like this is what life is, this is what this world is going to be like after you die because of you. And that's what breaks his heart. Not just here's what you did, but here's what you left behind. Not just here's who you were, but here's the consequences of who you were. I think about that Because here, think about our stories. Like right now, every one of us is writing our story.

Every one of us is in the midst of our story. That there's so much more, God willing, so much more of your life, of your legacy that is still being written. And we know that the day is going to come when it ends. We know that the day is going to come not only when our individual stories are going to be over, but we know the day is going to come when the entire story, like the story of the universe, the story from the beginning of time to the end of time, will be written.

and the last word on the last page of the last chapter of that book will have been uttered, will have been written, will have been inscribed in history, and that's the day that everything will come to an end. In fact, the second reading talks about this. It's from Second Timothy or Second Peter. Peter describes it like this. He says, the day of the Lord will come, that day where everything's over. And the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar,

and the elements will be dissolved by fire. And then he says this key line, we're going to talk about it a little bit. And the earth and everything done on it will be, found out. I think it's interesting as Christians, like we know how the story ends. As Christians, we know that in the end, at the end of the whole thing, when the whole thing's written, we know the end in that end is that Jesus will have won. We know the end, and the end is that Christ will have victory. We know the end is that justice and love and that will win. But there are all these blank pages between this moment and that moment. There's all these

blank pages right in front of us. There's all these, all these moments to be lived between now and then. There's all these innumerable decisions to be made between now and then. Because the story isn't over yet, and yet, again, we know that that day will come. In fact, we call it in Catholic circles, we call it the last judgment. So, quick little thing. What do Catholics believe about the last judgment? I think it's important to understand this. Okay, so there's two judgments. One is called the particular judgment. One's called the last judgment. the particular judgment is what happens to each, every one of us individually when we die. So when we die, we're individually judged, right?

So basically that's to say, when every one of us dies, we get what we've chosen. It's like the simplest way to say it, right? When we die, we get what we've chosen. If we chosen God, we get God. And if we've chosen anything other than God, we get not God. Again, just let's highlight this. Because of what Jesus has done for us, because he has made heaven accessible, because He's made it possible for us to actually enter heaven.

Because Jesus gives us the power. He's called grace to actually choose him. When we die, if we've chosen God, we get God. It's like that simple. It's that straightforward. And the other part, if we have not chosen God, then we get not God. At the moment of our death, if we haven't chosen God, is no one like passively slides into heaven.

Just we need to understand this, right? No one just passively, you don't get heaven unless you've chosen. It's kind of like going to a restaurant. and someone puts a menu in front of you, you're like, wow, these look awesome. But if you don't actually choose what to eat, they don't just say, well, you know what, we've decided for you, you're getting the filet with a side salad, with vinaigrette, and the side salad, in a bowl of soup, and some dessert. Like, no one actually just gives you food.

If you don't choose any food, you don't get any food. And the same thing is true. If we don't actively choose God, then we get not God. That's the particular judgment. But there's this thing called the final, the last judgment. And that's clarification. That's not like an appeals court where you're like, I don't like the first ruling. Like from hell we're like, wait a second.

I don't think you had all the facts, Your Honor. Like, because we know that God knows everything, right? So we know God is a good God. So he knows all of the facts of the case. So his ruling is a just ruling. The last judgment is not God knowing all the facts. The last judgment is the moment that we know all the facts. The particular judgment, God knows the whole story.

But the last judgment, what St. Peter's writing about, that's the moment that we get to know the entire story. Because this is the moment, the last judgment, is the moment where the entire story has been written, where the last word on the last page of the last chapter will finally have been written. And in that moment, you guys, this is the great news. In that moment, the whole story will not only be written, but it will be known and it will be understood. When that day comes, you will not.

know, and you will understand two massive things. One is God's role in that whole story, and the second is your role in that story. You'll know God's role. You'll know all the times that he was hidden, and yet he was not absent. You know, last week we talked about this, right? We talked about how everything that happens in the world is part of God's will, but there's two kinds of God's will, right? There's his perfect will, which is plan A, when he only wills goodness, he only wills love for us, he only wills life for us, but there's also his, what we call his permissive will. It's the stuff that God allows. He doesn't want to happen.

He doesn't want us to choose evil. He doesn't want evil to be done to any one of us. But God allows evil, part of his permissive will, to do two things. One is because he preserves our free will. But the second reason is because he knows he can bring up greater good out of it. This is what the Catechism says about this day and about this thing. He says, it says, the last judgment will reveal that God's justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures, and that God's love is stronger than death.

So when that last word on the last page of the last chapter is written, it will reveal that God will have, in some mysterious way, only known to him, that his justice will reveal and triumph over all the injustices that we've committed and all the injustices that we've suffered. We can see glimpses of this in the Bible. In fact, there's the story in the book of Genesis. right? There's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob has 12 sons. The 10th, the 11th son of Jacob is named Joseph. And we know the story about Joseph, right? His 10 older brothers, they all absolutely

hate him. They reject him, they despise him, they're going to kill him, but instead they decide, let's just let's not kill him, that's too mean, we're going to sell him to slavery. That's a good brothers do. And so they sell him into slavery, and here's Joseph, who's not only now a slave, he's then falsely accused, he's falsely imprisoned, he's abandoned, he's forgotten, he's forgotten, he's left for dead, and then God mysteriously, miraculously, leads him out of prison to become number two in the entire kingdom of Egypt. And he does this because Joseph's able to understand and interpret the dream of Pharaoh. The dream was that there will be seven years of plenty and followed by seven years of famine. And so Joseph recommends to the Pharaoh, he says, okay, so during those seven

years of plenty, store up a bunch of food for the time of famine. So that's what they do. over the course of those seven years of famine, Joseph's brothers, they make their way to Egypt because that's where all the food is. And they come before, maybe you've heard the story before. They come before Joseph, they don't recognize him because he looks like an Egyptian. He walks like an Egyptian, talks like an Egyptian. And thank you. But he recognizes them right away.

And he basically manipulates them to come back, bringing their father, he reveals himself to them. They think he's going to kill him, but he says, I forgive you. The last story of the book of Genesis, is when their father dies. And they bury their father back in the land of Israel, the land of Canaan. And then his brothers come to Joseph and they say, we think that now that our dad is dead,

you're going to take your revenge on us. We think now you're going to take vengeance on us because you must hate us. You must absolutely hate your brothers. We sold you into slavery. We rejected you. We abandoned you. We were going to kill you.

And it's so powerful because in this moment, moment of the Bible. Joseph, he hears his brothers have this fear about him and he breaks down in weeps. And he says, it is true that what you did, you did, you meant for evil. It says, but God meant it for good so that he could save the lives of so many people, including you. This is just a glimpse of the truth of the reality is that God has his permissive will, which we don't like. We're like, God just eradicate all pain. And we might do that. We might do that. We're just a glimpse. We're just, we're things and mean it for evil, but like Joseph, we can say, no, but God meant it for good. Why? Because the catacism says it like this. He says, we shall know at the end, when the story is written,

the last word, the last page, the last chapter. He says, we shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation. On that day, we'll not just know it, we'll understand it, and the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which in his providence he led everything towards its final end. Then that day, you'll know the whole story, that yes, God was hidden, but he was not absent. Yes, God was unseen, but he was not inactive. And the whole time he was inviting us, he was part of the story, and the whole time he was inviting us to be part of his story.

It was so interesting. There's another story in the Old Testament about a woman named Esther. Maybe you've heard this story. It's from the book of Esther, aptly named. And the people of Israel are exiled into Babylon, and then the Persians come to power, and they're occupying Babylon. And at one point, King Ahasuerus, he gets rid of his previous queen

and he wants a second queen and wants another queen, a new queen. And so he has basically a beauty pageant looking for his next queen and Esther wins. She's elevated to be the queen of Persia. She was an orphan and she was raised by her uncle Mordecai. And at one point Mordecai becomes the enemy of the number two person in all of Persia and so that number two person decides

that he convinces the king to declare an order that all the Israelites all the Jews would be killed. So Mordecai sends word to his adopted daughter, his niece, Esther, and says, go before the king and convince him not to do this thing, because the entire people of Israel are meant to be killed. And Esther says, if I go before the king, unbidden, he could kill me. And it's this moment that Mordecai says something so powerful. He says, listen, it is for such a time as this. Maybe it's for such a time as this that the Lord has brought you to this place. To act, to be part of his story. And he says, these powerful words, he says, know this, that the Lord will deliver his people from execution.

The Lord will deliver us. He had the absolute confidence of God. Know this. The Lord will deliver his people from execution. But if you don't do something now, you will have no part in that story. He will save us. But if you don't act, you will have no part in this story. On that last day, not only will we know and understand where God has been, even though we

he's been hidden, he's not absent, even though he's unseen, he's not inactive, but we'll also know our part of the story. On that last day, we'll also know our part of the story. Here's what the catechism says about that. He says this, the last judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do in their earthly life. Think about that. On the last day, when the whole story's been written, you will know and understand not only your life, not only where God was in your life, in every single moment of your life, but we will also know the furthest consequences of every decision that we made. Think about this, every good deed that you've ever done,

how that affected the next person and the next person and the next person, how it just ripples out. But we'll also know to its furthest consequences the ripples of every evil choice we made, that the thing we thought was private or hidden, no one's business. How that affected the people around us. Like that, that word that was, we casually said, that wounded someone and they carried with them for the rest of their life. We'll know to the furthest consequences, those actions that we did that burdened someone that they passed on to their kids.

We'll know the decisions that we made in this life that affected your own kids until the day they died, that would continue to affect your grandchildren because you and I were unwilling to rewrite our story. We were unwilling to get that thing out of our heart to get that thing out of our lives. This will be our legacy. Because what is written on the blank pages between this moment and the last moment will be a part of the story forever.

What is written on those pages between this moment and that moment will be part of the story forever. It will be our legacy. And at some point, people are like, I don't want to be known like that. I don't want everyone to know my stuff. I don't want everyone to know my business. But they have to.

They have to know your entire story. They have to know everything. And they have to also know your legacy. Why? Because heaven is a place where you're loved fully. And heaven is a place where you can fully love. But you can't be loved fully unless you're known fully. And you can't love fully unless you fully know.

And so it's actually a grace. It's a mercy. It's a gift of heaven. that your entire story will not just be known to you, it will be known to everyone in heaven. They will know every one of your wounds. They will know every one of your strengths.

They will know every moment that you've sinned against the Lord. They'll know every moment of great grace where you've said yes to the Lord. And that will not be a moment of pride because they'll also know all the ways God helped you. And it will also be a moment of shame. Because in that, think about this, in that time,

the last judgment, when everything is known, what also will be known are all of your hidden wounds that no one knows about. All the secret battles that you fight every single day that no one knows about. So there'll be no room for shame because you will be not only fully known, but fully understood. Not only will you fully know yourself,

but you'll fully understand yourself. And that has to happen. that again, the last judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do in their earthly life. Why? Because when you're fully known, that's when you can be fully loved. Even to the furthest consequences. I just want to highlight this.

That means the choices we're making right now. They don't end with us. We know this is the case that there's words that, there's words that, you know, that we're you've said and that I've said that affect the people around us. There's things that we've done, there's ways we've treated people that they carry with them now. Things that you've said or how you've treated people that they has hurt them, that they're actually ultimately maybe going to hurt others with that same thing. That your kids and your grandkids and your great grandkids will be affected by the choices you make today.

will be affected by the decisions you made in the past. And what is written on that page at the end of the story will forever be my legacy. It will forever be your legacy. But there's still good news. And the good news is the story isn't over. On that last day, the story will have been fully written. But the good news is the story is not over.

In fact, this is part of the Christmas Carol. Here's the ghost of Christmas. Christmas is yet to come, that shows Scrooge his legacy, and Scrooge breaks down, tears are just washing over his face, and he says, tell me Spirit, you wouldn't have shown me this unless I could change it. Why would you have shown me this unless I can change my legacy, unless I can change this story, unless I can rewrite this whole thing? Because that's the big prayer, that's a big prayer every one of us has, right?

When we look at our story and imagine what possibly could be my legacy, we have this one question, and it's the one question that all these people who went from Judea and Jerusalem, they went out to the Jordan River for? Every one of them went out to see John for one reason. They wanted to get baptized by him. Great. Why? For one reason. They went out to him with one question, that one question is, can I change it? Can I be changed? Is my story over? Or is there hope? That's the question of every single person who went out to see John. That's the question of Scrooge, and that's the question that St. Peter answers. Because in the second reading today, what does he say? He says, listen, you might think that the Lord is delayed in his coming.

You might think that the Lord is putting off the last page. He's doing it for one reason. And that one reason is, so you can rewrite your story. The one reason is, so you can change your life. That one reason is so you can change how the story ends. C.S. Lewis says it like this. He said, you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. When it comes to our stories, we can't go back and change the beginning, but we can start where we are and we can change the ending. So here's the question, and this is almost the last thing. Where do we start? Well, I'd say this, if the day of the Lord, that last page is all about truth, where we know fully know the truth, then I think where we start is we start by telling the truth.

if that's the day when, as it says in St. Peter, it's everything done on earth will be found out. Maybe the way we start this is by revealing what is hidden. And that's why I just need to take this moment and praise the Lord for his gifts of the sacrament of confession. Because what is the sacrament of confession? The sacrament of confession is rehearsal for heaven. The sacrament of confession is practice for heaven. Why? Because we go into the confessional and we say, this is the truth. This is the truth about my story.

I'm not going to hide. I'm going to let this be revealed in the midst of God's love and his mercy. Confession is rehearsal for heaven. We tell the truth. It's one of the reasons why staying away from confession is rehearsal for hell.

Not going to confession. Is rehearsal for hell? Where we say, I don't want to acknowledge the truth of my heart. I don't want to acknowledge the truth of my heart. I don't want to acknowledge the truth of my story and I don't want enough to change the end. I know a lot of people ask the question before going to confession they have this question but I don't know if I can go. Is there

hope for me? Like can I change? And the answer is absolutely yes there is. The question is absolutely yes you can but only only with humility and only with truth. Because yes, one day the story will have been written. One day, every moment of your life will have been lived. And one day, every decision will have been completed. One day, there will be the last word written on the last chapter, last page of the last chapter of this book. And that day, everything will be known and everything will be understood.

Where God was and how he brought justice out of even the most painful moments, your role and the legacy of all your choices and all my choices. But today, today is a blank page. Today is a new day. And today is the day that you can change your story. And if you can change your story, then you can change your life. And if you can change your life, then you can change your legacy.