Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 4/30/23 Homestretch: Love

Episode Date: April 29, 2023

Homily from the Fourth Sunday of Easter Sometimes love is just showing up. At the twilight of our lives, we will be judged on love alone. And to love is to give. Love almost always involves sacrifice. Because there is no present like the time. Mass Readings from April 30, 2023:Acts 2:14a, 36-41Psalm 23: 1-3a, 3b4, 5, 61 Peter 2:20b-25 John 10:1-10

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 in your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you.

He reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Chapter 10 verses 1 through 10. Jesus said, amen, amen. I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him and the sheep hear his voice as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger. They will run away from him because they do not recognize the voice of strangers. Although Jesus used this figure of speech, the Pharisees did not realize what he was trying to tell them. So Jesus said again, amen. Amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved. and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief only comes to steal and slaughter and destroy. I came so that they may have life and have it more abundantly.

The gospel of the Lord. I'd you have a seat. So what we've been doing for the last few weeks is we've been recognizing the fact that the students here on campus are in the home stretch. And so we were looking at that sense of like there's always the beginnings, there's always the endings.

the home stretch is so good and the home stretch is also so difficult. Why? Because when you're in the home stretch, you're within sight of the finish line, but also the home stretch is the hardest part of the race that we recognize that. This is when things get really difficult. In fact, you might be in a season of life right now. It's part of the virtual front pew. You might be in a season of life where, yeah, you're not in a semester in college. You're not in that place right now. But yeah, you feel like, okay, I don't know, I'm going through some good times. Or maybe you're in a season in your life, you're like, I'm going through bad times. And so we just keep reminding ourselves that, okay, good times don't last and neither do bad times.

We just recognize that. Good times don't last and neither do bad times. So we need in order to get through the good times, in order to get through the bad times, we need something more, something that actually does last. And so we've reminded of the fact, though, for the last couple weeks, that St. Paul says, yes, in this world that is so good, all the gifts in this life, also all the sufferings and dilemmas,

burdens of this life. There are three things that remain, and those three things are faith, hope, and love. So we talked about faith as that last lap, the faith that works actually changes our life. We talked about how hope is what we need when we're in that second to last lap, where we have to keep going, but the finish is not in sight.

St. Paul makes it clear. He says, yeah, these three things last, these three things remain, faith, hope, and love. But then he concludes by saying, and the greatest of these is love. So here's love. The greatest of these things that last is love. In fact, speaking of great love,

we recognize that when Jesus was asked, what is the greatest commandment? what's the greatest law the Lord has given to us? He said very clearly, the greatest commandment is love. The greatest commandment, the greatest thing we can do is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And secondly, to love your neighbor as yourself. So we realize this.

We realize that without love, our lives become meaningless. In fact, St. John of the Cross at one point, at one of his, it's just such a powerful quote, this is a beautiful quote. He said, at the twilight of our. lives, meaning at the end of our lives, we will be judged on love alone. That out of the three things that remain, again, this is the greatest. So we realize this, that for the rest of your life, for the rest of my life, this love will be the criterion for either success or failure, like at the end of our lives will be judged on have we loved or have we

not loved loved, have we loved well? So the big question is, okay, if that's going to be the measure, if the great commandment is the measure for a successful life or a failure of a life, how do we do it? Like, what does it look like? And the first thing I want to say is it's not perfection because I think sometimes we can disqualify ourselves. We can say, like, I don't do this perfectly, I don't live perfectly, I don't follow the Lord perfectly, I don't even love the people around me perfectly. So maybe we look at ourselves and say, I'm not enough. I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing it well enough. And therefore, I can't possibly do this. But love is simple. In fact, how do the people

around you know of your love for them? You can sum it up in three simple words. like three simple words that convey to another person, how important they are in your life. And they're not those three simple words. They're the three simple words, here I am. That if you look in the Bible, you find there's a number of people who were called to great things. They were called to be prophets of the Lord, called to be the fathers of faith. And all throughout the scriptures, five of them in the Old Testament and one person in the New Testament, that when God called, that's simply what they said.

they simply said those three simple words, here I am. Here's Abraham, who God calls him. He just said, here I am. Here's Moses. When God called him, he said, here I am. Here's Jacob and Samuel. Here's all these others who, when God called, they simply said this easy, love can be summed up in those three simple words. Here I am.

And started with those three words, and those three words defined the entire rest of their lives. Simply, here I am. We remembered the last week we talked about hope. And in Hebrew, the word hope is y'ahal. And that word in Hebrew means to wait or to wait patiently. So we know that part of hope is to wait patiently. Well, the word love in Hebrew is the word ahava. And that word ahava has as its root the word to give.

So we know this. We know that to love is to give. And sometimes it's dramatic, right? Sometimes it's like to give everyone's whole life. Or sometimes it's really overwhelming. It's like I poured my life out for this person. But a lot of times to give to love is. simply knowing where you're supposed to be and being there.

So often, love is simply knowing what you're supposed to do and just doing that. And not doing it perfectly, not like being the best at it ever or the person who is the most talented at doing this thing, but just the person who says, here I am. And then put your whole heart into what it is, you know you're supposed to be doing, where it is, you know what you're supposed to be.

So some of you know that my mom died about, two months ago. And it's so fascinating. You know, the week between the Monday of her death and the Monday of her funeral, it was a really fascinating week. It was, I just, I've been reflecting on this a lot about the freedom that we all had, like my siblings and my dad and her brother and in-laws and nieces and nephews, the freedom we all had to talk about her. Like in that whole week, we just had this freedom to talk about her and not just, we got to, had her freedom to talk about all of her. Like the great things, but also her faults. This came up, you know, I can't express. how unique it was, how, like, joyful it was to be able to, at one moment, be altogether crying,

weeping over the fact that we're going to miss her, all the incredible aspects of her life. And then the next moment, having some pretty honest and vulnerable conversations about her flaws and about her wounds and about how those flaws and wounds have affected our lives. And then the next moment, just laughing about, you know, how she drove us crazy. And then the next moment, again, going back to crying about missing her and how great she was. And the crazy thing, I remember stepping back from this and thinking this was such a huge gift to have that whole week, and ever since then, too, and asking the question, how could we do this?

How could we all have this freedom to be able to remember the whole mom? The great parts and also the broken parts. And I think it's because her life for us was summed up in those three simple words, just simply saying, here I am. I think St. John of the Cross was right that at the twilight of our lives, at the end of our lives will be judged on love alone. and I truly believe this. I think that sometimes love is simply showing up.

So what I mean is like, so I always share this story. Maybe you've heard about this. Because I'd sometimes talk about my mom like this. But when I was growing up, she was trained as a nurse. And then she worked as a nurse when the first kids were born. But then later on, she was a stay-at-home mom. And she managed my dad's office and all that kind of stuff from the house. But she was there.

She was present in the house. And so every morning she would get up. And she would, you know, in the wintertime, she'd go down into the kitchen. And there was a little fireplace there. make a fire to kind of warm up the space for us. And then she'd make breakfast every single morning. My mom would make us breakfast.

And then lunch if we were home for lunch and dinner every single day. And I remember just that just seems very normal that my mom would just make breakfast. If she was too sick to do anything else, she would like go down, put out the like the cereal bowls and the milk and the in the cereal. And like, there it is. That's breakfast for this morning. I remember the power of her doing this. I thought this was just what happened because I remember I must have been junior high or something,

high school. And the kid in the locker next to me, he's like, like, oh, I had a pop-tart this morning. I was like, oh, would your mom make for breakfast? No, I just said a pop-tar. My mom doesn't make me breakfast. I remember thinking this. I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, does your mom not love you?

Like, just because that's what my mom always did. And it wasn't, this is crazy. It wasn't until later on. Actually, not too long ago, I was ordained a priest, and I was invited to more people's houses. And I realized as I was going to people's houses and eating their food, I didn't realize for the majority of my life how good food could taste. Because here's my mom who would make, you know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. And I didn't realize, and this is just, I would go to other people's houses who were good at cooking.

And I realized, as an adult, I probably was in my 30s, late 30s even, when I realized, oh my gosh, my mom was not a good cook. Like, she did it every single day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If she cooked, but she was not a good cook. And then it was only a couple years ago that my older sisters told me, oh, yeah, yeah, mom hates cooking. I was like, what? Here's the crazy thing. Here's my mom who made meals for us three times a day if we needed to every single day. She wasn't good at it.

She hated doing it. And I never knew. She never let on. And I'd say, I'd say, that's love. Now, my mom would say, that's just what you do. And no offense to my mom, after the cooking cracks, but no offense to my mom, but I don't think she's right. I don't think that is just what you do. I think that's just what you do when you love.

Because we all know. We all know how to show up to the place we know we're supposed to be and we don't want to be there and ruin everyone else's time. Like we all know what it is. They're like, I know what I'm supposed to do. I'm going to do it, but I'm not going to put my heart into it. Like I'm going to let you know that I do not want to be here. I do not want to be doing this thing.

We all know what that is to say I'm just doing my duty. Here I am. You know, St. Jose Maria Escriva, he's a saint, you know, That's why Saint is in front of his name. He once said, when it comes to this, he said, put your feelings aside. Duty comes first. But, he said, when fulfilling your duty, put your heart into it. It helps.

Because we realize this, I can show up resentfully. I can show up and say, here I am. But if I put my whole heart into it, if you put your whole heart into it, it transforms duty into something else. When you put your heart into it, when you say, here I am, It transforms duty into love. And at the end of our lives, we will be judged on love alone. And sometimes love is simply showing up.

We've all heard the phrase that it's time to do something like, hey, there's no time like the present. Just let's do it now. No time like the present. And I believe that. I agree with that. But I also heard someone change that phrase a little bit. And it impacted my heart in a unique way. They also said, and there's no present like the time.

There's no present like the time. It's so simple. That's not really easy because it'll cost something, right? It has to. Not to just continue the theme of funerals, but a number of years ago, one of our missionaries, he had gone home for Christmas break, and he spent about three days, I think, with his mom and dad,

and four days after he was home, his father died unexpectedly out of nowhere. And they scheduled the funeral for kind of right after Christmas, and, And he just said, you know, this my dad's funeral and I really wanted to go. But also, I don't really get a chance to be with my family very much. And so here's Christmas and my brother had come up from North Carolina. And so the brother came from New York.

And so we're all here. And I remember standing in the kitchen saying, I know it's a important. I know it's a really important thing to go out to Michigan, to go to this funeral. It's really a big deal. But also, I don't get the chance to see you guys. What do I do? And my brother-in-law, he said, you know what? Here's a piece of advice that I've held close to my heart.

And he looked at me and he said, the advice is you never regret going to a funeral. There's always other places you could be. There's always other things you could do, but you never regret going to a funeral. And it was like, yeah, but the time away from you and the cost it takes to get over there, but you never regret going to a funeral.

You never regret being where you're supposed to be. You never regret doing what you're supposed to do, especially in those moments. And I didn't realize that. So I went and I remember months after that, this particular missionary, he had shared with me. He had shared, he said, you know, I've been on campus for a year and a half, I worked with you for a year and a half.

But it wasn't until you went to my dad's funeral that I felt like you were a spiritual father. You know, in my mind, I was just acting on what my brother-in-law had said. This is a wise thing to do. It's a right thing that's a good thing to do. I didn't realize the impact it makes on a person's heart until, I guess it was the night before my mom had died. Sunday night. So I wasn't sure if I was going to go home that night or the next day during Mass, the 6 p.m.

mass we had at the cathedral. My older sister texted me and she said, hey, you should get home tonight. So I raced back here to the house and packed a bag and drove over to hospital and Braynard and I got to annoy my mom and got to give her the apostolic pardon. And so there my sisters were there. My dad was there. Her brother was there. A niece and a nephew were there just we were praying. And then after 11 o'clock at night, I might have been 1130 at night. On a Sunday night, three of the priests in my hometown, they just knocked on her hospital door and they walked in. I remember just thinking, oh my gosh, you guys, not only is it late. Not only is it late. is it Sunday, not only all the things, but you don't even need to be here. Like, I've already

anointed her. The other, the fourth priest in town, he already anointed her early today. I wanted to do it to myself. But like, double anoints, triple, a quadruple anointing. There is no reason for them, no quote unquote reason for them to be there. But when these three brothers walk through the door for the priests, I just, what that missionary had told me, I'm like, oh, I get it. because sometimes just I'm here, here I am, and it costs something. Because, right, will love, the root is a hava to give. So we know this. Love almost always involves sacrifice, and it has to.

Love almost always involves sacrifice. It has to because if it doesn't, it's mere convenience, right? If it doesn't, it's, I have nothing better to do. If love doesn't involve sacrifice, then the ones you love end up getting your leftovers. this stuff I didn't want anyways. So here's the thing. I think for this summer, I think the words that should define our summer

are those three words. Here I am. For our family members that we'll see, for our friends that we'll see. But above all for God, remember this is the great commandment. The great commandment is love the Lord of God with everything. How do I know if I love God?

How do I... What's the metric, what's the measurement for whether I love God or not? Well, sometimes love is simply, It's simply showing up. It's simply saying, here I am, and here's the crazy thing. To do that, so simple, but to do that requires a decision. You know, we've been talking home stretch that last lap is the hardest part of the race,

or the second to the last lap is the hardest part of the race. But I think that sometimes the hardest part and the most difficult part and the most critical part of the race is simply making the decision to show up. You know, a lot of our students, they're coming to the end. But you know what happens right after the end is something new starts. As soon as they get done with graduation, as soon as they get done with this academic year, the summer starts, the rest of life starts, whatever that is. So we're coming to, all of us are coming not just to an end of something. This isn't just a home stretch.

We're also coming to a starting line in some unique way. And so my invitation is to make the decision to love. As you come to the beginning, to make this decision to show up. Because this is what Jesus has done. this is, he's the good shepherd. What's the whole point of Christianity? What's the heart of Christianity? The whole heart of Christianity is the incarnation.

That at some point, the God who is love shows up. At one point in history, the God who is love, he becomes one of us. At the point, at one point in history, the God who is love, he comes close to us. And the result is, he came that we might have life and have it to the full. That Jesus showed up and he showed us, that he loves us. Jesus showed up and he shows us that love costs something. Jesus showed up and he showed us what love looks like. He said, here I am.

And he didn't just say here I am 2,000 years ago. What does you do at every mass? At every single mass, Jesus shows up and he says, here I am, truly present, body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist. See, Jesus has made his decision for you. The Good Shepherd has made his decision for you and he invites us to make a decision back. He has chosen. He has chosen definitively to love us.

And the question is, will we return love for love? This is the last thing. We have a decision to love, right? We have a decision to give. And this decision will change your may. This decision will change your summer. This decision to simply show up will change your life. At the twilight of our lives, you and I will be

judged on love alone. And we know that love gifts. We know that love costs. We know that love is a decision. And you also know that sometimes love is simply showing up.