Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 12/25/24 Face to Face: Two Words

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

Homily from the Nativity of the Lord (Christmas). The one who has gratitude has enough. At the moment we get to stand before the Lord face to face, what will the automatic and overwhelming response be? Will it be a word of love? Of contrition? Or will it be two words that summarize everything that could be said to the God who has used everything to get us ready to stand before Him? Mass Readings from December 25, 2024: Isaiah 52:7-10 Psalms 98:1-6.Hebrews 1:1-6 John 1:1-18

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this in other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday, or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Chapter 1, verses 1 through 18. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through Him, and without Him, nothing came to be. What came to be through Him was life. And this life was the light of the human race.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony to testify to the light so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to all who did accept him, he gave power to become children of God.

God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation, nor by human choice, nor by a man's decision, but of God. And the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And we saw his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. John testified to him and cried out, saying, this was he of whom I said, the one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me. From his fullness, we have all received grace in place of grace because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only son, God, who is at the father's side, has revealed him, the gospel of the Lord. May you have a seat. So here we are on December 25th.

know for the last 25 days, we have been asking the question, what would happen if I woke up on this day, on Christmas Day, and I was dead? How would I live Advent differently? And so this whole Advent last 25 days, we've been keeping death in mind. We've been keeping, okay, how do I live in such a way that when I open my eyes, whatever day it is, today or any time in my life, when I open my eyes and all there is there is God. Am I ready? because we talked about this, right? We talked about in Advent, it's a season of preparation. And the only way to be ready is to get ready.

The only way to be prepared is to get prepared. So imagine this. Imagine this is the day that you opened your eyes and you see the Lord face to face. This is the moment. The moment where you can picture your whole life, you can see all the times you prayed. And you can see in this moment all the times you failed to pray.

This moment as you stand before the Lord face to face, all the times you decided to choose to love the Lord, and all the times you failed to love the Lord. All the promises you tried so hard to keep and kept them, and even all those promises that you intended to keep and broke them. Imagine open your eyes in seeing God himself and realizing here's my whole life of letting the Lord heal you and letting the Lord pick you up and letting the Lord restore you to His grace through confession.

And again, through this whole life of trials, in this whole life of struggle and this whole life of joy and of love and of loneliness and a whole life of hearts that are full and hearts that are broken, the moment comes where you see the Lord face to face. Here's the question. What do you do at that moment? Like if you're standing before the Lord face to face, what is the first, what's the first thing you do?

What's the first thing you say? Back in the day, there was a Christian song by Christian band called I Can Only Imagine. And the idea is it was this, you know, surrounded by your glory, what will I do? Will I dance for you, Jesus? Will I be still? Will I fall on my face? Will I kneel before you?

Will I sing alleluia? Will I be able to say anything? And that's the question. What do you think on this day? Today, when you see the Lord face to face, what would be that word? What would be the word that would just kind of erupt out of you? As you're looking at God himself,

would it be that the word we say at every mass? Lord, I'm not worthy. Let's say the word. maybe maybe it's it's the word just Jesus I love you maybe the word that comes out is God I'm so sorry I knew how many chances you gave me how many opportunities you gave me how much grace you gave me I'm just so sorry

maybe it's maybe the first thing that would just erupt again naturally supernaturally come out of you is that that act of humility and active faith and active worship of just God you are God I'm not and in that moment to be able to realize the difference between the creator and just being one of his creation. All of those things are possibilities. All those things could come out of us in that moment. We stand before the Lord face to face.

But I believe that there is one thing. There are two words. One thing in two words that for every one of us, that moment, this moment where we stand before the Lord face to face will probably all be summarized. Everything. Our life and our eternity will be summed up by just simply two words that will erupt from our hearts.

and those two words are thank you thank you after everything I think standing before the Lord that's all we can say God thank you thank you for when I was broken and you helped me God thank you for those times

that I suffered and you were there God thank you for those times of loss that you used thank you for those times of my own weakness that you used God, thank you for all the times I said no to you and you didn't give up. God, thank you for every beat of joy.

I don't think that there's much we'd be able to say other than thank you. God, God, thank you for those promises I made and you helped me keep them. God, thank you for those promises that I made and I wasn't able to keep them. But you remained faithful. I think that these two words will define all of our eternity. That knowledge of, oh my gosh, God, thank you. Because from this moment on, I mean, honestly, standing before the Lord face-to-face

and realizing from this moment on to know that you will have him and you will never lose him again, be able to look at God and say, God, thank you. I have you, I'll never lose you again. You'll have him and you'll be halved by him to stand before the Lord face-to-face and just know that you're held by him. Thank you, God. Thank you for giving me the strength to stand. Thank you for the grace to be here.

Thank you because I would not be here unless you had been there. Thank you, God, because I want nothing more and I want nothing else. And that's the key. I want nothing more, God, and I want nothing else because he is more than enough. And this is the truth, this is the truth of this life and this is the truth of the afterlife. The one who has gratitude has enough. This is the secret for every single. everything. The one who has gratitude has enough. The one who is grateful has enough. The one who can say

thank you for what I've been given or what they have or the one who has gratitude has enough. We know that because this whole Advent, this whole season we've been preparing and we've been grateful this whole season because we know it. We know that the season of preparation for three things, the three arrivals of Christ to celebrate his first coming into this world at Christmas. That's today. That's right now. We get to celebrate because we've been prepared. Their only way to be ready is to get ready. We also know that second coming. Christ keeps coming into the world. So to be able to recognize him. We needed to prepare to recognize him. And we get to do that. We also have been preparing to see him face to face.

But I think that there's something remarkable about this, right? So all of this season, we recognize, okay, if I'm going to get ready to see you face to face, Lord, I need to step up from behind the shame that's keeping me hidden from you. We also recognize that God, it's not my work. It's your work. I have an incomplete, but you bring to completion the good work you've begun in me. We also recognize that we can never really see the Lord face to face until we show him our true face until we have faces. And then last Sunday we talked about how we can still be afraid. We can still be afraid of the hidden parts of our hearts, the hidden parts of our brokenness. That can God do something with our fear.

And the answer is yes, he can take our fear and turn it into a fiat. He can take our being afraid and turn it into trust where we can actually stand before the Lord. Like Mary and Joseph, I mean, imagine on this day, Mary and Joseph holding the infant, Emmanuel, God who come into the world, and be able to hold him in their hands and place their face against his face, place their cheek against his cheek.

Imagine the disciples, the apostles. Years later, when they're able to actually look at Christ's face and actually see him gazing at them, like how grateful, how grateful they would all be. And just the only word that can come out is thank you. you. He is the one who has gratitude, has enough. And this is us now, because this is the reality, of course, is that yes, today we're celebrating that Christ has come into the world. And yes, we've been prepared this whole season of Advent to see the Lord at the moment of our death. But here's

the incredible news. God comes into our world right now. He comes into our world. He steps into our lives through his word, through his scripture, right? He comes into our lives through prayer. He comes into our lives in our daily, daily duties, daily tasks, daily moments. I mean, this is the reality that we've been trying to prepare for. It's not simply to see his face at the end of our lives. It's to see his face in every moment of our lives. It's not simply to see his face in the afterlife, but to see his face in this life, to be able to recognize him in this life and to know that actually he steps into our days.

Right now, in this moment, wherever you are, here is God who has you in his gaze. that you have God's complete attention in this moment and you can see him. Right now, years ago there was a man named St. Ambrose. He was the Archbishop of Milan in like the 4th century. At one point, here's, you know, here's Ambrose who, he didn't ever get to meet Jesus in person. He was born in the 300s.

He was never in Israel, never went to Jerusalem, never went to Nazareth. But Ambrose at one point, he uttered these powerful, powerful words. And they're words that every one of us needs to take to heart because sometimes we think that we're missing out. We're missing out if we didn't see the Lord face to face while he was walking this earth for 33 years. But St. Ambrose said this.

He said, you have shown yourself to me, oh Christ, face to face. I meet you in your sacraments. To recognize the reality, the power, the joy of this, you have shown yourself to me, oh Christ, face to face, I meet you in your sacraments. I see you in your sacraments. I mean, just the recognition that here and the mass, we actually get to see the Lord face-to-face. This is him. It's not a symbol of Jesus, not a painting of Jesus, not a statue of Jesus, not an image of Jesus.

This is Jesus himself. And if we have the grace, to be able to recognize him in the daily moments of our daily lives, and the grace to recognize him in his word, and the grace to recognize him in his sacraments, we will be more than prepared, more than we will be more than, ready. Because it turns out that if we're part of this Mass today, we didn't die today. This is not the last day of our life on this earth, but it could be in some ways the first. In some ways, it could be the first day that we step out into this world, in this life, with a new vision. We're able to recognize Jesus in every moment of every day. When we go to Mass,

we go to adoration, we meet Jesus face to face. And every time we can say a certain number of things, and this is the last thing. Every time we can say a certain number of things, we can say, Lord, I'm not worthy. And that's true. Say the word, that's true. We can say, Jesus, I love you.

Every time we go to Mass, Jesus, I love you. And that's true. We can say, amen, I do believe, and that's true. And in this moment and every moment of the rest of our lives, we can say the words that will define our life and will define our eternity. And whenever we see the Lord Jesus face to face in the Eucharist, whenever we see the Lord face to face in His Word,

whenever we see the Lord face to face in His sacraments, we can say the words that we will say when we see our Lord face to face in eternity. Every day can be heaven. Every day we live in the presence of Jesus. Every day we can see the Lord face to face and utter those words. Thank you.