Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 12/4/22 Closer Than You Think: One Step

Episode Date: December 3, 2022

Homily from the Second Sunday of Advent. "One day" could become "Day One". So often, there are things that we would like to do "one day". Sometimes those dreams pass us by and we lose nothing. But other times, we must take action otherwise "one day" becomes "never". As Christians, we either Begin or we Begin Again.

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 Matthew. Chapter 3, verses 1 through 12. John the Baptist appeared preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said, A voice of one crying out in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.

John wore clothing made of camel's hair and had a leather belt around his waist. his food was locusts and wild honey. At that time, Jerusalem, all Judea and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves,

we have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these very stones. Even now, the axe lies at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I am baptizing you with water for repentance. But one is coming after me, is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

His winnowing fan is in his hand. he will clear the threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn. But the chaff, he will burn in unquenchable fire, the gospel of the Lord. So I mentioned at beginning of mass, you know, this whole notion of having the things that you want to do one day. I remember I was in high school and I came up, remember the chicken soup for the soul books? Read those, whatever. So there was one that had the story of this older man that when he was 15 years old, he sat down and wrote this bucket list of 100 things he wanted to do one day in his life.

And it was one of those really inspiring stories where he did basically everything except for like two on the list. He didn't make it to space. That was one of them. He's not Jeff Bezos. And basically I was so inspired by this, I was like, yes, there's all these things that I want to do one day. And I have a whole list of them.

In fact, one of the, I might mention this like, I think, I don't know, maybe last spring, maybe last summer. When I was a kid, I was kind of obsessed with polar exploration for whatever reason. I think one of the reasons is because the guy who made it first to the South Pole, his name's Roald Amundsen, and my mom's maiden name was Amundsen, so I'm like, maybe he was my uncle, I don't know. Maybe he wasn't, I don't know. But I love this idea. In fact, Roald Amundsen, there were stories about him that in high school, or when he was a kid,

he would sleep with his window open during the winter in Norway because he wanted to like train himself and harden his body to the cold elements. And so I did the same thing. And my parents were very upset about that. It's freezing in here. What are you doing? Erna Shackleton, another guy. I just loved his stories about like his, again, that race to this South Pole. I wanted to be a polar explorer. That was the kind of idea. One day I want to go to the South Pole. One of the most incredible stories I remember reading was about an Australian explorer named Douglas Mosson. And Douglas Mosson, well, he said, I'm going to leave the first for the race to the South Pole to Amundsen and to Shackleton. He said, I want to chart what's been undercharted,

like Antarctica. I want to discover what's been undiscovered in Antarctica. And so he set out, Same time, about actually 110 years ago, almost to the day, in 1912, Mawson had eight teams of three men, and they left base camp, and they just went exploring all over Antarctica. In fact, he traveled with a man named Xavier Mertz, who was from Germany, and an Englishman whose last name was Ninnis, and they got 300 miles away from their base camp when tragedy struck. At one point they were crossing this ice bridge over a crevasse. and Mosson made it across and Mertz made it across.

As they looked back, Ninnis was going across, and his sled with his dogs all of a sudden plummeted into this crevasse. They skied back and they called out. They looked down and they could see two dead dogs. They couldn't see Ninnis at all. They couldn't see the rest of the dogs. And they called out for hours. They called out his name and they had no response.

They had to presume that this man had fallen hundreds of feet into this crevasse and had died. Now, that's tragic enough, that they lost their companion, they lost their traveling partner, they lost this friend of theirs. But Ninus had their best six dogs. He had on his sled, he had their tent. He had all the dog food, and he had almost all of their food. It was December 14th, 1912.

And they had virtually no food, no shelter. And there were 300 miles from home. One day. That's where I'm going to go. That's what I thought, right? Like one day, that's what I want to do. And it's crazy. You know, for me, there's kind of a problem,

and that problem is, for me, one day has become never. Like when it comes to polar exploration, one day is like never. I don't really, I don't see myself ever going to Antarctica. And I guess that's life, right? Sometimes we have these things we want to do one day, and they just become never, and that's fine. It's okay. Dreams change. Right?

Goals can be shifted. But there are some things in our lives. There are some things that we say, but one day I want this to be true. And if one day becomes never, it's a tragedy. So last week we talked about, I know as we started, as we entered into Advent, I kind of shared with everyone here like this fear I have. And the fear that I have is that we can show up from ass every single Sunday. And we show up here to hear about someone else's relationship with God. That the reality we have is like we might show up here week after week to hear someone else

to talk about what is their relationship with Jesus. And so many of us, we don't have a firsthand relationship with Christ. We have a secondhand relationship with God. As long as people can tell me about what their experience was, then I keep coming back. But I don't know what it's like to have a firsthand encounter with Jesus. And that's a fear because the reality, of course, is every one of us, you're made to have a firsthand encounter. Every one of us is made to have a firsthand relationship with God. The truth about God is that he's not distant, he's not far off.

And in fact, that's the whole mystery of Christmas, is that God is closer than you think. So we started this series last week called Closer Than You Think. Because the problem is, too many of us have a second-hand relationship with God. And the reality is God made us to have a first-hand relationship with him. So I shared, if you remember this, I shared last weekend in the story of this acquaintance of mine who was in prison locally, who knew the Lord, he knew him personally. And there was this other, like, if you may not have been here, it was Thanksgiving weekend,

that this hardened prisoner who had been in the Hells Angels that had been addicted to meth for 40 years, he saw in my friend something different. And he said, I want what you have. And the man said, really, do you want it? Here's the challenge. And he said, for the next 30 days, I need you to. to spend one hour a day in the presence of Jesus and the Eucharist. Because actually in the prison, they have the tabernacle, Christ is present in the Eucharist.

I need you to show up every single day for one hour for 30 days. The man said, okay, fine, I'll do this. Day after day happened and day 27 rolled around. And this man, again, talked about this last weekend. He's running across the yard in the prison saying, looking for this guy. And he said, I met him. Like he showed himself to me. He revealed himself to me.

In fact, he said, Jesus didn't just take my hand. He held my heart. and I know who he is now. That man's life completely changed. On day 27, after spending all this time with Jesus and the Eucharist. And so if you were here, you know that I invited all of us. As of last Sunday, there were 29 days last Sunday between last Sunday and Christmas Day. So I invited us all to do this thing where, rather than a whole hour for 30 days,

how about 29 minutes for 29 days? That for the next 29 days, for the 29 days of Advent, that we spend 29 minutes every day in the Lord's presence. Again, not like in my corner, my prayer corner, not like in my comfy chair, not in a small, but in the Lord's presence, like actually going to the tabernacle. Whether it would be here or at the Newman House, wherever it was, to find Jesus in the Eucharist,

and then plant yourself for 29 minutes, for 29 days. So that was kind of the invitation. And then after all week, I've been bothered by this. All week I've been bothered my invitation, because I was like, man, that was kind of mean to me. I kind of like sprung that on everybody, like, okay, you guys, here's what we're all going to do for the next 29 days. And I'm like, I didn't mean, happy Thanksgiving, I guess.

Well, Thanksgiving weekend surprised by me. And also, it's kind of intimidating. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do 29 minutes for 29 days. No, I imagine that most people here were like, okay, all right, that's a decent idea. I think that I would like to do that one day. And of course, we have all the reasons why, all the reasons why one day is not now, because we even talked about them last week.

if there's any busy season in life right now, does life get any busier than it is right now? Like out of all the papers and projects, out of all the exams, all the parties, all the get-togethers, all the everything that happens, like, yeah, this is the perfect time, father, to introduce 29 minutes for 29 days. It's kind of ridiculous. I want to do it eventually. I want to do it one day. Or maybe even you had the thought of like, actually I'm going to do that. And then all of a sudden all these excuses, all these reasons why right now is not the right time.

popped up. There's this author's name is Stephen Presfield. Stephen Pressfield wrote about this thing. He called it The Resistance. He wrote a book called The War of Art. He said anytime someone sits down to do something great, every time someone sits about to do something more, to live for something bigger, they always encounter what he calls the resistance. And the resistance is that thing that opposes us the moment we make the decision, or even the moment we begin to think about making the decision to go for something bigger. To do something more, we encounter. We encounter this thing called the resistance. Because I know I want to do this. But I've all these arguments, have all these reasons not to try, all these reasons not to start. And so we say, one day,

because it's busy. We've got a lot going on. So maybe I'll do that one day. But maybe, maybe one day is closer than you think. In the gospel, we have John the Baptist, right, shows up on the scene. And he's preaching to the Jewish people, preaching to the people of Israel. Now think about this, people of Israel have been waiting, they've been praying, they've been hoping that God would come near. Ever since God appeared to Abraham, 2,000 years before this. So there's 2,000 years between when God went to Abraham and John the Baptist preaching. That's 2,000 years of, you know, one day, or even King David. King David was 1,000 years before John the Baptist showed up. And King David talked about one day, there'll be the promised Messiah, the promised anointed one. He'll be

here one day. Imagine a thousand years of one day or even the prophets. The prophets for hundreds of years have been saying one day the Lord is going to establish the kingdom and all of a sudden here's John the Baptist in today's gospel. What does he say? He says the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Basically John is saying okay all that one day that's here. That one day that's now. God is closer than you think. And I'm going to say that's true right now. That's true for every one of us. and so here's the deal the invitation from last week

of 29 minutes every day from now until Christmas it stands I'm gonna stick with it because I think it's worth it because you're not meant to have a secondhand relationship with Jesus Jesus wants to have a first-hand encounter with you our problem

is we keep saying well maybe I'll do that one day is that one day will become never or or one day can become day one. Easy. One day can become never or one day can become day one. Now, you might think like, okay, fine, but I missed it. I didn't start last week.

I can't do 29 minutes and 29 days. You know what you can do? 20 minutes and 22 days. You know why? Because all it takes for one day to become day one one is one step. That's it. All it takes for one day to become day one is one decision.

You just have to decide to begin. That's it. And maybe, maybe if you were here last weekend, it's been eating at the back of your head, like maybe I should start, maybe I should do this thing, maybe I should try. Maybe I'll do it one day. I'm going to, I've got to tell you right now,

that day is today. And it just starts with one step. That's all it takes. It's just one step. I mean, think about this. One choice is all it takes. One step is all it takes to begin. And it's so small.

I mean, the reality is it's so small. But one step, we realize one step compounds over time. In fact, if you ever think about this, one step at a time is the only way we get anywhere. I know so many of us want to be so far ahead of where we actually are, but if we're actually going to get there, the only way we can get there is One step at a time.

In fact, we realize this, I don't know if you ever thought about this, the whole Christian life is this. Just begin. The whole Christian life is just one step. This is the secret, you guys. The secret of the Christian life is take one step. Because God is in that step. God is closer than you think.

God is in that step. And our problem is, we make things so complicated. when it's actually so simple. We think like, well, what if I do this and nothing happens? Or what if I can't do it? What if I try and I fail? It's so ridiculous. Because think about this, the clarity of one step.

Like the purity of one step, it's so simple. No matter what happens, just begin. No matter what happens, just take one step because God is in that step. So what if I try and nothing happens? Like what if you go into the Lord's presence? What if you say, okay, I'm going to park myself next? to the tabernacle for 29 minutes a day and nothing happens. Well, here's the thing. The guy in prison who had, he'd agreed to do an hour for 30 days. You know, for 26 days, nothing happened,

or at least he didn't think anything was happening. But for 26 days, he showed up, and it wasn't until that 27th day that his life was permanently and completely totally changed. Sometimes it doesn't take 27 days. In fact, I have a friend, a buddy in mine in the seminary. Before he was in the seminary, he wasn't even Catholic. He was Catholic by the time he went to the seminary. But he wasn't Catholic. He wasn't even anything. And a friend of his had invited him to adoration. So they walked into this old chapel where our Lord was there on the altar and the monstrance right there. He had no idea. His friend was like the meanest friend in the world. He didn't even give me any context. He didn't even give him a heads up of here's what adoration is and here's what. He just said, come with me into this room.

Like, that's mean. Don't do that. My friend, his name is Dennis, Father Dennis now. His friend walked in and went to the front and knelt down. Dennis walked in and he looked up as he walked into the little small chapel and he saw Jesus in Eucharist. He had had no idea what he's looking at, but he said, I had to stay in the back. In fact, he said, I had to hide behind the pew in front of me. I couldn't even look up. He said, I couldn't look at him.

He said, all I knew I was looking at, I was looking at goodness. All I knew was I was looking at something holy. All I knew I was looking at love. And he said he just sobbed the entire time he was there. and he had no idea that that was Jesus and the Eucharist until afterwards. Because sometimes it happens like that. Other times it happens like me. When I was in high school, I had a conversion to Jesus.

And I remember reading about the Eucharist. And I read in a book, like, yeah, that's really Jesus in the Eucharist. I'm like, well, that's where I want to be. And I read about saints who would go and they'd put themselves in front of the tabernacle. So I'm like, that's what I'm going to do. And I went to kneel down. Now, the way they described how the saints prayed in front of the Euchar is it would say, yeah, these saints would get on their knees in front of the tabernacle.

and hours would feel like minutes. So I showed up. And I got to tell you guys, I knelt down, and minutes felt like ours. It was like, what am I doing? I'm like, okay, Jesus, go. Go. And it felt like nothing was happening. But that's totally normal.

In fact, I mentioned my friend Nick. He and his wife, Jaisland, they were raised Pentecostal. They weren't even Catholic. At one point, Nick, I was telling him about this weekend, and he said, oh my gosh, do you remember when Jocelyn and I had her first adoration time? I said, no, remind me. He said, oh my gosh. He said, we went into Newman. We had adoration in the garage there. He said, we walked in, knelt down, and we had to hang out for an hour. He said, the whole time I was like, where's the music? Like, is the band late? Like, what's happening?

See, there's all I could do to stay awake. We left after an hour. He said, we walked out and Jason looked at me and she was like, he said, I was about to say, what a waste of time. She looked at me and said, wasn't that amazing? And he's like, yes, I guess it was. Because that's our experience, right? Sometimes we show up and it feels like nothing's happening. But God is in that step. God's in that step that you simply showed up. Yeah, but what if I can't do it? What if I try and I fail? I sometimes think, too often we think, if I can't do it perfectly, then I'm disqualified. I think too often we have this idea that we need to be perfect.

We have to know the truth. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Perfection is the enemy of the good. Because the good is just taken one step. Too often, perfection is the enemy of progress. So if I can't do it perfectly, I don't want to do it. That's a way to not do anything ever. So if I haven't started, begin.

If I started and failed, okay. Begin again. It's that simple. It's that easy. It's just one step. Because if this today is your day one, then begin. And God is in that step. And if you tried last week and failed all week, that's okay.

Begin again, because God is in that step. As long as you don't quit, there's always more to the story. There's always more that God can do. So go back to Douglas Mawson and Xavier Mertz. On December 14th, 1912, 300 miles from the nearest resources, bitterly cold, in deep snow. There's monstrous grasses. All of them, both of them. They could only get 300 miles by taking one step at a time.

What happened was, you know, one by one, their dogs all died. After a number of days, Mertz became desperately ill. And when Douglas Mawson put him on his sled, and he basically hooked himself up to the harness and dragged his friend Xavier Mertz only two and a half miles. One day, it's all they could travel. Two and a half miles. But he just wouldn't give up, unfortunately.

Just, I think, after new... years. In the middle of the night, Mertz, as I said, became desperately ill. In the middle of the night, he died and Mawson lost on only his friend, but almost lost the reason to move on. He buried Xavier Mertz there. He marked his grave with a cross. And he kept going. Now at this point, Mawson had virtually no food. There were open sores on his mouth, on his nose, all over his legs, the soles of his feet had completely slipped off so that he bandaged the soles of his feet back on every morning and put on six layers of wolf socks just to keep the soles of his feet attached.

And he still had 100 miles to go. The worst moment, the worst moment I ever read about in this whole experience was he was crossing over another ice bridge of this hidden crevasse, and it gave way. And as he was falling through the air, he thought, well, that's it, I'm done. But he was attached by this 14-foot-long rope to his sled. And miraculously, the sled caught on the snow, and there he found himself dangling 14 feet in the air. No, you made one thing if he was like against the ledge,

but it was an overhang. So he was dangling, hanging in mid-air. Remember when you had to do rope climbs in elementary school? Here's this man who's emaciated. This man who has, his skin is falling off. This man who hasn't had a decent meal in weeks. But he tied these knots in the rope, and he just hand over hand, climbed 14 feet,

to the top of the lip of this crevasse. As he swung one leg over the snow, the snow gave way again, and he fell once again 14 feet, and he hung there, suspended in midair. He thought, okay, this is where I die. Like, this is where the end is. I'm just going to give up. And it was in that moment when he said,

I'm just going to give up, and just going to hang here until I die. When he had the words of this poet, it came to his mind, and the words were simple. It just said, just have one more try. tis dead easy to die it's the keeping on living that's hard

in that moment he said okay all it can do is just one step so once again hand over hand this man pulled himself up to the lip of this crevasse and climbed out and just took one step after the other he made it all hundred miles but as he came to the brow of the hill

overlooking the base camp the steamer that he had been racing against the clock to catch before it left, he could see it out in the bay sailing away. He missed it by five hours. And the steamer wasn't coming back for another year. And he thought, I'm dead. But as he looked down at the base camp,

he saw three, maybe five other people. These people who stayed behind. There were people who said, I'll stay here for at least one more year stranded in Antarctica on the chance that one of our friends, one of our comrades might still be alive. Basically saying, if Mawson or Mertz or Ninnis are alive,

we're not going to leave without you. We went down to the base camp. They couldn't recognize him at all. But they had waited for him, saying they're not going to leave without you. For one year, they made that camp, and 10 months later, the steamer came back and rescued him.

Nesued all of them. Now, I tell that whole story, not just because it's awesome, but because this is our spiritual life is what God is doing in your life in my life. You know, in the letter to the Hebrews, the author says, in your battle against sin,

you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. Basically, here's scripture saying, you have no idea how much fight you have left within you. Tonight, on the verge of the last week of classes, tonight on the verge of finals, on tonight on this verge of this next step, you have no idea how much fight you have left within you. You might say I have so far to go, yes,

but you have no idea how much fight you have left within you. And even more than that, you know that tonight you can begin. Or if you fail, tonight you can begin again. Tonight you can take one step. Because even if it's not about the fight that's within you, it's about the grace that God has for you. And this is the quick last thing.

tonight's second reading st paul wrote to the romans he said i want to remind you of the endurance you have you still have fight within you but also the encouragement you get from the scriptures basically that god is not going to leave without you and to hear this right now god is not going to leave without you you might have so far to go it's okay begin you might have failed that's okay begin again God is not going to leave without you. God is faithful. And God is close to you in your pain. God is faithful and God is close to you in your struggle.

God is faithful. And God is in that next step. Because God is closer than you think.