Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 12/25/20 Taken

Episode Date: December 25, 2020

Homily from the Mass of the Nativity of the Lord (Christmas). Why is He there? We have become more comfortable with the "completed" past than the unknown future. Rather than desiring to launch into the challenge of the future, many of us have become paralyzed by fear of the future. When we are rooted in the Word of God each day, we become more rooted in God Himself each day. When we are rooted in the Lord, there is no room for fear of the future. Mass Readings from December 25, 2020: Isaiah 52:7-10 Psalm 98:1-6Hebrews 1:1-6 John 1:1-18

So again, Merry Christmas and what a gift to be able to, I don't know, just there's so many things around Christmas that are I love Christmas movies. I don't know. I don't know. I want to ask like I don't know if you were in your home right now or wherever you're at Just what your favorite Christmas movie is because there's so many to choose from there like the classics right there There's Miracle on 34th Street. There's like the original white Christmas. There's it's a wonderful life you have Christmas Carol you have the Claimation Rudolph Frosty you know about the list and also the newer classics right You have Christmas Vacation, which is a great one, The Grinch. You have Elf. Of course, I don't know, there's none of the newer Christmas classic than Christmas story.

A story of Ralphie. All he wants is Red Rider, Carbent Action, 200 shot, and range of a rifle with a compass in the stock and the singing itself as all his time. That's all he wants. And everyone keeps warning him that he's going to shoot his eye out. So there's a lot to choose from when it comes to Christmas movies. But I would say that here in 2020, my favorite Christmas movie of all time, possibly, is the movie taken. If you've seen that movie, it's taken with Liam Neeson. It's a story of like he, Liam Neeson plays this ex-CIA operative whose 17-year-old daughter

is on vacation in France and she gets abducted, she gets sold into human trafficking, and then he has this very particular set of skills that he wants to do something about this. That I think is probably hands down my favorite Christmas movie of all time. We'll get back to that in just a second. But I'm thinking about, so in your church, maybe in your home right now, and here in the chapel, we have a manger, right? you have the manger scene. And I always think about this.

Look, if you have a nativity scene, look over at the image of Jesus in the manger. I want you to ask one question. I want to ask you one question. And the question is, here's Jesus in the manger. What's he doing there? Like, Natchez, like, oh, he's frozen in the mid-hour. Like, no, like, what's Jesus in the manger?

What's he doing there? Like originally, 2,000 years ago, here is God himself, God incarnate, as a baby, newborn baby, and he's lying in a manger, the question is, what's he doing there? It could be like our answer to that is like, I don't know, peace on earth or goodwill to men, right? That's how the angel said it.

Like, yes, that's how the angel said it, and yes, that's how the song goes. But I think that's not the right answer, right? What's he doing there? I think a lot of us, if we had to answer that question, we'd just say, I don't know. Like, I'm not sure. You know, recently I was looking up,

I really, I go in these waves of getting kind of preoccupied or obsessed with World War II and stories about World War II. And so I was looking through these books and through these photos of D-Day. And there was images of these young men from the United States soldiers who were part of the 101st Airborne Division. There they are on their troop transport getting ready to parachute into the invasion of Normandy. And it looked at this photo. He was this young man, no older than our students, probably even maybe some of them are younger than us. our students. And you'd ask the question, see that image of that young man, that photograph of the young man, the 101st Airborne Division, about to drop into Normandy. You asked the question,

what's he doing there? You would have a very, very, very clear answer. He is there to fight. Like, he is there to liberate Europe from a tyrant and an oppressive regime. Like, that's why he was there. We'd be so clear, razor, laser clear on why he was there. And so this, you know, I was challenged to ask this question, what's Jesus? What's he doing there in the manger by a brother priest of mine, his father John? And Father John keeps asking this question, like, what was he doing there? And I think a lot of times when it comes to our answer to what's he doing there,

we don't have a clear answer because we're kind of muddy on our story. We kind of muddy on what's going on right now. We're kind of muddy on where we are right now. And I think because we're so muddy, this whole pandemic stuff has taken so many people by surprise. There's so many people, I think because we're so muddy on our story, That's why so many people live in fear. We thought we were in a safe world. We thought we were in a comfortable world.

We thought we were in a world that was good. But when we remember the beginning of the story, like the beginning of everything, we realize something really powerful. Yes, this world is good. I think, you know, if you were with us last over the course of Lent, we spent a lot of time, in fact, the whole season of Lent talking about the fact that God made this world good.

Right? That even the scriptures, Genesis 1 says, when God makes more stuff, it continues to be even better. Like, this is good and this is good. And the whole thing, he says, it's very, very good. And then he makes us, right, human beings in his image and likeness, basically God's saying, I want to make a people, a being that's like me, that you've been made like God.

Why? Because God's saying, like, I want them to be like me. I want them to share in my love. I want them to share in my joy. I want them to share it in my life. I want them to share in my abundance. And then he does it. And then we broke the world.

so God gives us this incredible world and then we break it and we broke that relationship and we broke our hearts into thousand pieces by saying this essential thing that we all say God I know what you want but I want what I want this is the essence of every sin it was the essence of the sin of Adam and Eve

God I know what you want but I want what I want and because of that we broke the world we broke the relationship we broke our hearts and then we sold ourselves into slavery that's what happened As a result, we're good, but we're broken. As a result of this, we're good, but we're bound, we're enslaved, we're anxious and we're joyless, and we're afraid, and we're purposeless, and we feel abandoned and we feel fatherlessness. Because we've been taken. That's what happened.

We've been taken. You know, in that movie, which, by the way, is a horrible movie. Like, do not just, like, after mass, like, pop it in and watch it while your opening presence. That would not be a family film. It's powerful, the difficult scene. One of the most difficult scenes is when here is the father. He knows that his daughter is, his daughter who has gone off where he did not want her to go. He knows that she'll be found by the enemy.

And he says these words to her. He says, now this next part is very important. They are going to take you. But you need to stay focused. And he gives her instructions on what she needs to do. You know, Genesis chapter 3 is very similar. after we broke the world, after we broke our hearts, after we sold ourselves into slavery,

here's God the Father who says, okay, this is very important, here's what's going to happen. Childbirth is going to be painful, and relationships will be broken, and you're going to be tempted to use and to dominate and to manipulate each other in your relationships, and work is going to feel like slavery. This is what's going to happen.

But to the serpent, it's so interesting, to the serpent, he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers, and he will crush your head. This is so reminiscent of the scene where Liam Mason, his character, the father, says, a very particular set of skills, and if you do not give my child back, I will hunt you down, I will find you, I will destroy you. Because here's a dad who will stop at nothing. Here's our God who will not stop.

Question, Jesus in the manger, what's he doing there? He is declaring war. That's what he's doing. Christmas is an act of war. You've been taken. You've been afraid. You've been purposeless. You've been abandoned.

But you are not fatherless. Tolkien, J.R. Tolkien, he had a poem. He had a poem about Christmas, about this day, about this moment. And one of the lines in that poem is so powerful. It says, this is the moment when the sword leapt from its sheath. Because God wants his world back. And God wants his kids back. Isaiah 45 says, I will fight with those who have fought with you.

I will contend with those who contend with you. So question, what's he doing there? He's saying, I'm here. He's saying I'm here to fight. He's saying I'm here to fight for you. He's saying you are not fatherless. You are not abandoned. You are not worthless.

That's one of the prices, right? that we feel abandoned, we feel fathers, we feel worthless. And that's why, gosh, so many Christmas songs are so good, a holy night. It has long laid the world in sin and error pining, like just broken. Here we are, good but bound. And it says, but then he appeared. And the soul felt its worth. This, what's he doing here?

What's he doing there? This is rescue. This is him fighting. You know, it's interesting. before this moment in history, before the incarnation, before Christmas, before the nativity, all we had, all the human race had were white flags. Before this moment in history, all we had was white flags. We could not fight back.

We couldn't resist. We were bound. The Bible even clarifies this. The Bible clarifies that before Christ, everyone, well, even after Christ, everyone's born. We're all born belonging to the evil one. I don't know if you know that, but every human being, born is born under his dominion, under the dominion of Satan, under the dominion of his possession. We live in the, we're born into the kingdom of darkness. Yeah, we're good,

but we're enslaved. We're good, but we're bound. That's one of the reasons why in the right of baptism, one of the initial rights in the right of baptism is the right of exorcism, where the priest or deacon or bishop, whoever it is says, declares over this child in the name of Jesus, like, no, you're being transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Lord himself. You know, it's interesting. We're talking about the devil on Christmas? Why not? I was talking about Taken, I guess might as well keep going.

There's a priest who has a PhD in Exorcism, which he's the only person in the entire history of the world to get a PhD in Exorcism. And one of the things he researched was the rise of exorcisms recently. Now, he said he's read everything there is ever written about exorcism. And he said in the early church. And as Christianity expanded, there were exorcisms all over the place. Why?

Because the world belonged to Satan. He said, but something happened when Christendom was reigning. Essentially, when there was Christian, everyone was being baptized. He said there were hardly any exorcisms. They almost were non-existent except for in mission territories. Because if everyone's getting baptized, that means immediately they're being brought into the kingdom of the Lord right away.

He said there's been a rise now in baptisms because people aren't baptizing their children anymore. And so many of our brothers and sisters in the human race are living enslaved. So many of our brothers and sisters in the human race are still good, but they're bound. The gift of baptism, the gift of being transferred, the gift of being rescued is, Father John, he also, he shared this example. It's an example he got from a Baptist pastor who was talking about the power of baptism. He said, imagine, imagine growing up in a home that was so broken. Maybe some of you know, exactly what this is all about. Maybe some of you are in the midst of it right now.

Where it's a horrible family, where no one loves and no one is loved, where all you know, all the child knows, all you know what has been to be neglected, to be ignored, to be used, to be abused. And next door, there's this family, and you see them all the time. They're out in the front yard,

and there's this dad of this family who, he works with his kids. They do projects in the backyard. They play catch in the front yard. And you can hear them at night through your window. A laughter on the kitchen table. Imagine one day, there's a knock at the door, and you open it, and there's the dad. And he says, I want to know if you would like to come and live with me and my family.

You'll never have to come back here. He says, you wouldn't even pack. You'd just go. to be able to have that truth of like, I've seen how you love your kids and you want me to be one of them. That's what he's doing there. Came to take us home.

To fight for us. He's declaring war on everything that enslaves. That's what he was doing there. Last thing. Another question. What is he doing? here now? What's he doing here? Because Jesus Christ is truly present still. Yes, he was in a manger in Bethlehem. He is in every tabernacle and every Catholic church around

the world. What is he doing here? Well, this is not a past event. He is declaring that you are still worth fighting for. That he's declaring that you are still worth choosing now. He's declaring that you have been attacked and you have been anxious and you have been afraid and you have been taken, but God has not given up and he will never give up. That's why he's still here. To fight for you now, no matter of what kind of mess your life is, that's why he's here now, to fight for you now. And maybe that's why you're here now.

Maybe that's why you're here right now. Because you forgot or because you never knew that there is a God who fights for you, who has declared war for you, and who has come for you to take you home.