Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 4/2/23 Prototype: Acceptance

Episode Date: April 1, 2023

Homily from Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion. Jesus' secret is voluntary and radical acceptance. In His final moments on earth, our Rabbi teaches us one of the greatest lessons of Bet Midrash: how do we face the worst possible realities of life? Do we resist reality? Do we avoid addressing what scares us? Or do we do what Jesus did? Do we choose voluntary and radical acceptance? Mass Readings from April 2, 2023:Isaiah 50:4-7Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24Philemon 2:6-11 Matthew 26:14—27:66

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 and 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. So as you might remember,

this whole Lent we've been talking about the imitation of Christ that the whole point of the Christian life, right, is, is not just to be slightly better, like the whole goal of Lent is not just to be slightly better. The whole goal of Christian life is not just to get rid of bad habits and get good habits, just like the goal of Lent is not just to get rid of bad habits and get good habits. The whole goal of Lent is the whole goal of the Christian life, which is to end up looking like Jesus. It's the imitation of Christ. And so we've been doing this whole series called the Prototype because Jesus is our rabbi. He's our prototype.

And so you might remember this, that we talked about like we kept every. every weekend. We've been talking about the three schools, if you remember this at all. And there's no test. There's no test. I'm not going to ask you. Tell me what they are. But we all know, right? When you're six years old in the first century, if you're a Jewish kid, you went to that first school, Bet's Afer. And Betz-a-Fer, the whole goal, from six years old to ten years old, is you would memorize the first five books of the Bible. At 10 years old, you'd have the first five book completely memorized every single word. And if you were good but not great, your rabbi would tell you, go learn the trade of your father. But if you were the best of the best, you go to the second school.

And that second school was called Bet Talmud. So from 10 years old to 15, years old, you'd memorize the entire rest of the Bible, right? From Genesis to Malachi, you'd have every word memorized by the time you're 15 years old. And again, if you're good, but not great, your rabbi would say, okay, go learn the trade of your father. But if you're the best of the best, of the best, you would then find a rabbi, and you'd enter into Bet Midrash. And remember, the whole point is that the rabbi wasn't going to tell you any more about the Bible, because you already know the Bible. The Bible's memorized. You know it by heart. But your rabbi would be able to say, here's how to live the Bible. Here's how you apply every word you read

to life. And that was Bet Midrash. The whole goal of Bet Midrash was to look like your rabbi. That's why we find ourselves in Lent in Bet Midrash. We find ourselves in Lent just studying our rabbi because he's the prototype. So that's review. I don't know if you've ever noticed this.

If the whole point, right, is you're six years old to ten years old, hey, you're good but not great. Go learn the trade of your father. 10 to 15, Bet Talmud, good but not great. Go learn the trade of your father. You know what in the Gospels, when Jesus comes and calls Simon and Andrew, they're not in a synagogue studying.

They're not still in school. When he calls James and John, they're not in a school. When he calls Matthew, he's not in the school. What are they doing? They're plying the trades of their fathers. Here's Simon and Andrew. They're fishermen because their dad was a fisherman.

Here's James and John, sons of Zeppity. They're fishermen because their father was a fisherman. Here's Matthew. We don't know if his dad was the tax collector, but we do know this. He was not in Bet Talmud. He was not in Bet, Medrash. None of the people that Jesus chose to be his disciples, none of the people that Jesus chose

to change the world. None of them were the best of the best of the best. Every one of them was plying the trade of their father. I imagine out of that 12, maybe there was at least one of them, maybe all of them wanted to be in bed midrash. Like I imagine all of them. Maybe said like, ah, here I am a fisherman, here, I'm a tax collector, here, I'm doing whatever. And life has not turned out the way I expected. Imagine how many of them were looking at their lives saying this is not the law.

that I planned. Like this is not the life that I was hoping for. This is not the life that I expected. And that could be so many of us, right? That's me so many of us in any given season where you get to college. And it's like, okay, I am not in the major I thought. When I'll tell them my family, my friends, ever since I was fourth grade, here's my major. I'm going to be at one of these. And then here I am. It's not even close. Or you get a major. You get a degree. And then how many times how many of us, you get a job after college, you're like, my job is in, has no connection whatsoever to my major. Or that sense of like, okay, I get, I graduate, I get a job, and I find someone. And maybe there's no one. And look, man, this has not turned out how I wanted. Or maybe

you do get married. It's like, we're going to raise this big Catholic family and you find that we can't have children. We look at our lives and like, this is not how I planned. This is not the life that I had thought I'd get. I think so many of us in any given season, any even moment, we could look at our lives right now and say, I wish things were different, I wish it was otherwise, I wish life wasn't like how it is. I wish this season of my life is not how, I wish I didn't have to go through what I'm going through right now. And that's one of the reasons why this last thing that Jesus is going to teach us, this last lesson of Bet Midrash, I believe what Jesus is teaching us today in the gospel we just all participated in.

What he's teaching us today is his greatest secret. is like the greatest secret of our rabbi, the greatest secret of our prototype, the greatest thing he could teach any one of us. What is the lesson? What is the message keeps coming back again and again in the gospel today? It's that Jesus is going through something

and he doesn't want to. Here's Jesus, and he might have known it was coming because, right, it's prophesied all these things, but what does he say? He says, my soul is sorrowful, even to death. I don't want this. He prays multiple times in the Garden of Githemite. Father, if it's possible,

take this cup away from me. You know, in John's gospel, Jesus says, he says, my heart is troubled. Yet what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. It's for this hour that I came. Here's Jesus is a secret. Jesus is a secret when he finds himself in the place that you and I will find ourselves so many times of our lives where we'll realize this is not the life I want.

This is not how I expected things to turn out. Jesus is a secret that transforms everything is voluntary and radical acceptance. That's what it is. That's Christ's secret that reveals to us today. voluntary and radical acceptance. It's voluntary because he's freely choosing it, and it's radical because he accepts it without condition. And realize this voluntary, radical acceptance changes the whole story.

It changes the story completely. Jesus makes it clear, this is not how I wanted this to happen. And also, he makes it clear, he's not seeking this out for its own sake. And yet, think about this. Oh, my gosh, think about this voluntary radical acceptance changes the entire story. If you and I were walking by Galgatha on that Good Friday, and we saw three men crucified on three different crosses, what we would see, we say there's three criminals being executed.

That's all it is. All it is is a mere execution. We might know, we might not know that the one in the middle is also God himself, but it's just an execution. It's just a tragedy. It's just meaningless. But because Jesus accepts that voluntarily and radically, he transforms this moment, this cross,

from being an execution into being a sacrifice. Voluntary and radical acceptance changes everything. Remember, even the second reading today, Philippians, he emptied himself, he chose voluntarily and radically to accept this even to the point of death, death on the cross. So Jesus is an incredible secret. It's secret that might be even hard for us to accept is this voluntary and radical acceptance.

Now, here we have to understand this. We have to understand. Acceptance is not approval. We have to make this clear. Acceptance is not the thing. same thing as approval. But acceptance does this. It acknowledges three things. First, it acknowledges this is evil. It acknowledges the fact that like, no, I, this is a real battle. This is a real struggle. This is not good. The first thing that acceptance has to acknowledge is that this is not good.

This is evil. The second thing is, it acknowledges I don't want this. It acknowledges the fact that that I wish it were otherwise. We have to acknowledge the fact that if I look in my heart, like, I would not seek this out on my own. So the first two things that it acknowledges, it acknowledges, is this is evil and I don't want it. But if I can't change it, and the knowledge is the third thing, this has come to me. These are the three things that acceptance acknowledges, right?

It's, this is evil. I don't want it. If I could change it, I would. But it's reality. This has come to me. No, that can sound a little bit like, are you just giving up? Or you're just like quitting?

Just lay down? That's not the same thing. Consider, what is actually the opposite of radical acceptance? What's the actually opposite of voluntary acceptance. The opposite is resisting reality. Right? The opposite is what many of us maybe woke up this morning with when you look out your window this morning and the snow was coming down on April 2nd. And you're like, no. In reality, it was like, yes. No matter how many of us make ourselves

miserable this time of year. Because we're like, no, spring should be here. Listen, if it should be here, it would be. And if you're meant to live in spring in April, you should live further south. because that's just, no matter how much we want to resist reality, this is what is. I mean, it reminds me of a, it's a story I've shared before, but you all know the story of Hatchet, right, the kid's novel, Hatchet by Gary Paulson. Tell the story of this young man, a 13-year-old kid named Brian, and at one point, Brian's flying over the Yukon and his plane crashes and everyone dies. He's, he's hundreds of miles away from civilization.

So my older sister, Amy, was reading this book to her son, Max, and when Max was like four or five years old, And there's a scene in this where here's the plane is crashed and here's Brian and he's hundreds of miles from civilization. He's lost in the wilderness. He's cold and he's wet and he's hungry. And Brian just sat there and he cried and cried until he couldn't cry anymore. And when he stopped crying, he realized that he was still hundreds of miles from civilization. And he was still cold and he was still wet and he was still hungry. And all that crying did absolutely nothing to help him.

And my sister looked at her son and said, CMAX, crying helps you, zero. Two things. That explains a lot about my family. Secondly, I understand this is kind of ironic coming from last week. We talked all about the gift of tears and gift of crying, but we're moving forward. The whole point is all of us have this temptation to do everything we can to resist reality that we don't like. When we have reality that we dislike, we resist it, we resent it, and what we end up doing

is we end up avoiding what scares us. We can do this with so many things. like not even just massive crosses. We even do this with like small things, like things that just come to us every single day. Like I know I need to call that person. I just don't want to. I know I need to write that paper. I just need to sit down. It's only two pages. I need to get it done. I just need to study for that test. Okay, tomorrow I know I need to go to work. But I just want my bed is so comfortable. All many times we tried to do everything we possibly can to avoid the things that scare us. You know, picking up that person. You said you'd pick them up. Why aren't you

there? My kid is sick. I just wish it were otherwise. have this bill to pay that I don't want to pay, that has an obligation to do that I don't want to do. This is where our rabbi, this is where our prototype is why he said, he looked at us and he said, if you want to be my disciple, you must deny yourself, pick up your cross daily, and follow me.

Like what does that mean when he says, pick up your cross daily? Basically, what he's saying is, that thing, whatever it is that comes to you daily, that thing that scares you, the thing that you'd rather avoid, the thing that tempts you to resist reality. That thing, you have to, if you're going to be like me,

you have to voluntarily choose to accept it, to face what you rather avoid, to embrace what scares you. In fact, every field of psychology does this. When they're dealing with someone who has actually a fear, a phobia, something that are afraid of that just paralyzes them. Every field of psychology has this thing. You probably heard it before called exposure therapy, right?

You know this. So here's someone, just an example. someone is afraid of needles or they're afraid of razors, blades. And so what person, a psychologist who's going to help this person with is what they don't do is they don't remove all razors. They don't remove all needles.

Because you can't. Can't do that. You can't live like that. What they will do is they'll have this gradual process of exposing them in a controlled environment gradually to these things that scare them. So it might look like, as I heard a psychologist talk about it, and said,

okay, tomorrow when you come in to my office, I'm going to have a needle in my desk drawer. It'll be in the drawer. It'll be locked. You're not going to have to look at it. You have to know that when you walk into the room, there's going to be a needle there, and they have to face that fear. Or maybe they'll just show them a picture of a needle or the picture of a blade. And gradually, over the course of time, there's more and more exposure because the reality,

of course, is that that blade can still hurt you and that needle can still puncture you. You don't remove the danger of the needle. You don't remove the danger of the blade. what you help the person do is you help them become strong. You help them become strong and say, okay, face that thing that scares you. Don't avoid reality. Don't resist or resent it. And we realize this, right?

Only in voluntarily accepting what is, rather than just simply wishing it was different. Can we become like our rabbi? Only when we voluntarily accept what is, can we become like a rabbi. Remember, the only thing that transformed crucifixion from an execution to a sacrifice was the fact that Jesus voluntarily accepted it. And the same is true for you and for me. The only thing that will transform our

life, because every one of us we're going to experience crosses, every one of us are going to experience so many moments in our lives when I say, I just wish it were different. And not just that, not just facing things that will frighten us. Actually, the things that frighten us most likely will probably kill us too. There are so many things. The light, is dangerous. And there are so many things in this world that we wish we're different. And those things actually have the potential to destroy us, except with voluntary acceptance. We won't be victims. If we have voluntary acceptance, we won't be victims. Our life will be a sacrifice. Our life will be an offering. And this is the second part, right? It's voluntary and radical acceptance.

Mer voluntary means freely chosen. Radical means I accept it without condition. Think about how many times we're like, okay, I'll accept this on the condition that ultimately I get what I want. I say, okay, I accept this as long as that means the pain ends. Okay, I'm willing to accept this as long as I get the healing, as long as I get the miracle. No, radical acceptance means I accept it regardless. I accept it without condition.

Radical acceptance of the cross is I accept this cross even if it crushes me. just like Jesus did, right? I'll accept this cross, even if it means that's where I'm going to breathe my last. Radical acceptance of the cross, we realize this, is actually the radical acceptance of all of life. That's what our prootaph. That's what a rabbi did. He accepted everything.

He accepted life in Nazareth when it was peace, peaceful and calm. He accepted life in Jerusalem, where they killed him. Jesus accepted the praises of Palm Sunday. He also accepted the revilements of Good Friday. Jesus accepted the love of his friends, and Jesus also accepted the betrayal of his friends. And so if we're going to be like him, we have to be the same. Yes, we accept the sunrises and sunsets. We accept the metals. We accept the mountains. We accept the waterfalls and the weddings, but we also accept the cancer. And we also accept the COVID. We also accept the accidents. We also accept the weakness.

We even, we even accept our own sins. We have to even accept our own weaknesses. because only when I voluntarily and radically accept all of life, am I finally free to actually engage all of life? If out of fear I avoid the crosses, I'm going to avoid life. And this is the last thing. If we do this, just so you know, if you do this, it will crush you. If you do this, it could kill you. If you do this, there's no guarantee that things,

will work out the way you want. But if you do this, I can promise you this, Jesus will not be far from you. If you do accept this cross, whatever it is, the daily cross, whatever it is that comes to you in holding onto the cross, you will find yourself holding on to Jesus. Because we realize that if Jesus is there, even the cross won't be the end of you.

Even the crushing won't be the end of you. It'll change you. because we realize that it's not just about the cross, it's also about the love. It's not just about the death, it's all the resurrection. It's not just about the fact that Jesus had a cross. It's about the fact that Jesus is on the cross,

and he never abandons those who are on their crosses. But he loves us in that moment. And he doesn't leave us in that moment. And it's those two truths that the crosses will come, but when they do, you'll be loved. We have to keep them close. Father Dave Ivanka, he's a, he's a,

priest out at Franciscan University of student of the university. He shared recently a story about one of his recent graduates. She's a nurse. And when she was in training, she had the head nurse, the charge nurse was following her along as she went from room to room and taking care of patients. And the charge nurse, after watching her for days and weeks, just said, you know, I have to ask you, I notice the way you take care of patients. You just have this care, you have this compassion. You have an ability to see them in a way that I don't see with all nurses. I don't. don't see with all medical professionals. And she asked her, she said, why? What is it about you? And this young nurse, she stopped and she thought, and she said, I think it's two things.

She said, in my life, I have suffered greatly. And in my life, I have been loved greatly. See, the whole point of life is not to get what we want. The whole point of life is not to jump to the end, the point of life is to become like Jesus. We realize with Jesus, the crosses, they don't have to crush us, they can change us. Because with Jesus, we can be struck down, but we're not destroyed. That with Jesus, we can be persecuted, but we're not abandoned. He never leaves us alone. Every one of us, we have the answer.

The answer is, when the crosses come, I have to, if I'm going to be like my rabbi, if I'm going to be like my prototype, I have to voluntarily and radically accept them and cling to that cross. Because we have the confidence, we have the faith, we have the trust that can declare powerfully and without hesitation. When I cling to the cross, I am close to Christ. And because of that every single moment, no matter what happens to me, I choose to voluntarily and radically accept whatever God brings into my life.