Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 6/18/23 The Need for Fathers

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

Homily from the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Competent generosity is the key for healthy masculinity. Jesus prays that His Church is never without shepherds. This world and His Church is in need of leaders, of shepherds, and of fathers. While we will always need women and mothers, we stand in particular need of fathers at this moment in history. We need both: strong and generous men and women to place their strength at the service of the people around them.Mass Readings from June 18, 2023:Exodus 19:2-6aPsalm 100:1-2, 3, 5Romans 5:6-11 Matthew 9:36—10:8

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 9 verses 36 through chapter 10, verse 8. At the sight of the crowds, Jesus' heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like a sheep without his shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few. So ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Then he summoned his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits

to drive them out to cure every disease and every day. illness. The names of the twelve apostles are these. First, Simon, called Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, James, the son of Alpheus and Thaddeus, Simon from Cana, and Judas Ascariot, who betrayed him. Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. And as you go, make this proclamation. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received, without cost you

are to give. The gospel of the Lord. So I didn't mention this at the beginning of Mass, but today is Father's Day. And it's one of those things where I'm like, it's not like, how to say this, I don't often talk about civic holidays, you know, as part of, it just seemed to a fit, though, as I was praying with these readings and praying about the fact that today is Father's Day, here's Jesus, and it says, he saw the crowds, right? They were troubled and abandoned. It's always moved with pity for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And if you know anything about, there's some theories about like the four male archetypes. And so when it comes to men, the four male archetypes are man as the lover, a man as the warrior,

man as the sage, and also a man as the king. And as the king. And as the king. And as the king. And as the king, we recognize that from the Old Testament here, you have David who's the king, but he doesn't start out as a king. He starts out as a shepherd. And then in so many ways, the role of the father is, of a family, it's like the role of a shepherd in a family. And so I just, and also just, again, again, don't talk about civic holiday things too often, but just coming back to this, the role of fathers, like even in fact that we'd say it like this, the need for fathers in our culture, in our families, in our, in our world, there's a there is a real need. We need men. Of course, we need women. We need fathers and mothers. It's, you know, the question is not to diminish one

at the, at the raising up of the other. But, you know, there's so much confusion in our culture, so much confusion in our world over what is it to be a woman? What is it to be a man? And so we recognize, yes, we absolutely need moms. 100% we need moms. And so they moms obviously need to be built up and supported as well. Women need to know what what is it to be a woman. to know what is it to be a man because we need each other. Raising children needs both moms and dads. I was listening or reading something actually. It was a pediatric psychologist who's documenting though that yes, well moms and dads are both essential. They're essential pillars for the healthy and emotional and well-being development of their children. Fathers play unique role. In fact,

that for young girls, fathers offer good fathers, offer security and emotional support. In fact, that a father, a good father, will show his daughter what a good relationship should look like. So if he's a kind and generous, if he's just, if he's fair, if he's giving, if he's loving, a good father will show his daughter what a good relationship will look like. For boys, though, it's interesting. Unlike for daughters who they model their relationships with others based off of their father's relationship, young boys will model themselves after their father. The role of a father is just so important.

and we should, why is that important? Because we should want our boys to become as strong as possible. Let's just say it like that. We should want our young boys to become as strong as possible. Yes, our young women too. But when it comes to the idea of like, okay, wait, you want your boys to be as strong as possible, want your men to be as strong as possible. Isn't that dangerous?

Because it brings up terms, like, I'm sure a term that we've heard in the last number of years, term toxic masculinity. And like, isn't there a danger there that if you want young, you want your men in your culture really to be as strong as possible, that seems like a recipe for time. toxic masculinity. In fact, there's even people who kind of embody this. In fact, I was asking before Mass, if any people here had heard of Amanda Andrew Tate, you might have heard of Andrew Tate. Andrew Tate, what is he? He is a former MMA star slash entrepreneur slash

influencer slash lifestyle guru slash alpha male slash social media personality. Basically, he talks a lot about being the alpha, right? He talks a lot about like, here's what it is to be an alpha male. And it's almost a parody. It's almost a character. of life because the idea of that he puts forward as like here's what it is to be the alpha is you need to if you need to drink this kind of whiskey you need drive these kinds of cars you need to smoke these kinds of cigars you need to date eat or have sex with these kinds of women if you're the kind of person that you need to be if you're going to be the alpha what you need to do according to Andrew Tate what you need to do is you need to dominate like that's what the

alpha does the alpha you know he asked the question you know I had to do some research on this the question of you know what do you do when you walk into a room you need to dominate When you walk into the room, you need to figure out who here in this room is the alpha. And it sounds so much like a parody, so much like a caricature that it can't even be real, but it is. There are so many young boys, young men are saying, that's it. That's what I need to be then. I need to dominate.

On the other hand, we have people say, like, I don't want that. Like, that sounds like toxic masculinity. I don't want toxic masculinity. I want the opposite of that. So I looked up in, like, you know, the the, the, thes, for me to say, thesaurus. in the the thesaurus, like what is the opposite of toxic? There's a couple of helpful words, but a couple of the first words that came up

when it came to the opposite, the antonym for the word toxic is the word safe or the word helpless. I think are those are your only two options? Either you're toxic or you're safe. You're toxic or you're helpless. Either you dominate or you're weak. There's a professor of psychology named Dr. Leonard Sachs. He wrote a book years ago called Boys Adrift.

And he diagnosed this same problem. He said, what our culture offers, our culture offers young boys two alternatives, two visions of what it is to be a man. One is, he called him the slacker dude. The slacker dude is, we might call like the weakling. He's the passive person. He's not just kind of a nice guy. He's the person who, like, not only, you know, couldn't hurt a fly or wouldn't hurt a fly, but he couldn't hurt a fly. Like that kind of person who just like, they kind of waste their time playing video games, waste their strength, doing nothing much of anything, just kind of like just hanging out.

That's the slacker dude. That's the safe, right? The harmless. The opposite vision that our world offers is what Dr. Leonard Sachs calls the brute or the bully. We would say that's the toxic masculine man, right? The person who just like the tyrant, basically. And so these are the two images

that our world gives young men and says either you can be the weakling or the tyrant. You can either be the slacker dude or you can be the brute, the bully. One is strength that's feared and so it's unused. strength that's wasted. It's just not used. The other is strength that's spent on oneself. I'm the tyrant so I can get what I need. I dominate so I can get what I need. I am the brute so I get

what I need? And the question is, which one, which image does Jesus put forth for us? Like, what's the image that Jesus wants for human beings, not just for men, but for all of us? And Jesus, you know, you think, well, Jesus would probably want the safer one. Jesus would want the gentler one, right? You know, Jesus, at one point, he describes himself and he says, come to me, for I am need. In fact, the beatitudes, Jesus says, blessed are the meek. So we think that maybe that's what it means. Maybe that's the slackered, maybe that's the weak one. But here's the interesting thing.

That term meek does not mean weak. In fact, I've heard it described like this, that if you take a stallion, right, if you take a horse, all the power of the horse, all the strength of the horse, you would have to, what they call, you'd meek the horse. It doesn't mean you make the horse weak. It doesn't mean you take the horse's strength away. It doesn't mean you take the horse's power away. It means that to meek a horse means you harness all of the horse.

of the power, all of the strength. You harness all the potential of that creature and you bring it under the control at the service of others. Like that's what it is to make a horse. You don't take the power away. You harness the power and bring it under control. It's why I always, whenever it comes to like, what is it to be an adult in this, in our culture, I always come back to this image because we realize we don't have any real clear sense of here is when you become an adult. I mean, is it when you are 16 and you can drive? Is it when you can, you know, buy cigarettes or scratch you, little lotto tickets at whatever 18 or 21. Is it when you drink? Is it when you go off to college? What's the mark of adulthood? There's no clear mark of adulthood. In fact, I keep going back to

this and I've said it many times, you've probably heard this, is I look at pictures, photographs, or even movies of young men who went off to war in World War II. And they are younger than some of the men I work with here on campus. And I think, okay, what's the difference? I think the first marker of adulthood, in this case, you know, we're talking about fathers and fathership, about men, first marker of adulthood is a willingness to take responsibility for oneself. That's the first one. Just like a willingness to take responsibility for oneself. I'm no longer under my mom's house, my parents' house. I'm no longer, they're taking care of me. I now, marker of adulthood, is I'm now willing to take responsibility for myself. And now do I say it

like this, I'm willing to develop my strength. I'm willing to develop my own competence. I'm taking responsibility for developing my own competence. I'm taking responsibility for developing my own strength and becoming a man. But there's another level. There's another level of adult, another level that's just incredible. It takes responsibility for others. And that's the difference between becoming a man, I take responsibility for myself, and becoming a father,

becoming a shepherd. I'm willing to take responsibility for someone else. So the first step of giving a man becoming an adult is I'm going to develop my competence. Becoming a father is I'm going to use my competence for others. Is that being alpha? That's a good question. You know, even that term alpha male, you probably heard this already, but the term alpha male came from some scientists who were studying wolves that were in captivity, essentially.

And they said they noticed that the wolves that kind of dominated, they would call them the alpha. There was an alpha female, an alpha male, and then all the others, you know, beta and after that, turns out that in subsequent studies, subsequent research have actually studied primates and wolves and other animals in the wild. And the alpha of the pack, the alpha of the group of primates, of gorillas or of any other kind of, they weren't the ones who just dominated. They weren't the ones who just took whatever they wanted. It was almost the opposite. The alpha male of the group was the one who took care of the others. The alpha male, actually in the wild, the alpha male was the one who served, the one who

made sure everyone had food, the one who made sure everyone had protection, the one who made sure everyone had shelter. In fact, I remember a psychologist describing this and saying that women aren't attracted. This is for the guys who are like, I want to be alpha. Why? Because I want to be the one who gets the girls. Women aren't attracted to that dominant personality. They aren't attracted to the alpha.

What they're attracted to is what he called competent generosity. This is what marked the alpha, the actual alpha, in those groups of primates and those groups of wolves. Those competent generosity. Not the slacker dude and not the brute. but what you might call the shepherd, what you might call the father, who might have to fight,

yes, absolutely might have to fight, but the primary task of the shepherd, the primary task is not fighting. The primary task is taking care of the sheep. The primary task of the father is not going to battle. The primary task of the father is, okay, I have to make sure these people are fed and guided and kept safe and raised.

And because of that, you have to know how to fight, because of that you have to be willing to fight, but that's merely at the service of the sheep, right? That's merely the service of those kids. It's not for his own glory or bravado or sense of self. And that's the crazy thing is because if that's what a man is going to be, again, on this Father's Day, and I know so many of these fathers who you're praying with us today, that is who you aspire to be.

And maybe you already even all those people. What you're going to face is you're going to face at least three different dangers. Three different attacks. And those attacks are being the immature father, the hypocritical father, or the impotent father. You can just say it as easily, the immature shepherd, the hypocritical shepherd, or the impotent shepherd. Because what's the immature father? One of the signs and one of the markers of the immature father is the father who only takes interest in his children as long as they entertain him. Yeah, they love playing with the kids, but as long as their entertainment value runs out, then his interest runs out.

Only so long as they're interested in what the father's interested in, then he'll be interested in them. And I think we all know shepherds like this, right? We all know fathers like this. We all know people like this. And we know their opposite. That's the big danger. That's the big temptation. That's the big trap.

So many fathers can fall into as immature fathers is. I'm only taking interest in my kids as long as they entertain me or as long as they're interested in what I am interested in as long as they serve me. And the mature father has his life is marked with he easily encourages his kids. the mature father will stand alongside his children. The mature father will discipline his children and show them the way. The mature father will embody the rules that he himself imposes, which is the second danger of trying to be a good shepherd

or trying to be a good dad, is the danger of hypocrisy. Because a mature father will embody the rules that he himself imposes, but we all know this. Every dad knows that this is the danger. Every dad knows that hypocrisy is the, is the, is the trap because he knows that he himself is not the man he wants to be. Every dad, every dad here on this father's day, everyone, every man knows that he is not himself

yet the man he wants his sons to be. He's not the person he wants his children to be. And then he knows that someday they're going to find this out. At some point they're going to discover that I am not the person, I'm not as good as they want them to be. I'm not as brave as they want them to be. I'm not as honest as I want them to be. I'm not as holy as I want them to be.

And I think, you know, sometimes it seems like part of adolescence seems to be the realization that dad doesn't live up to the ideals that he's set for the rest of us. In that moment, the shepherd, in that moment the father can't let that stop him. Why? Because his kids still need shepherds. Because this world still need shepherds. Because kids still need a dad. Kids still need moms.

and dads who are willing to say, here's how you can be better than me. I've shared this before, you know, because we'll all fail. Like, well, that's not the point. The point isn't being perfect moms or perfect dads. Is it a point isn't being perfect Christians or perfect shepherds? The point is I want my children to be better than I am. I know I've shared this before, but every one of my siblings and I, we were on the swim team ever since we were about six years old.

We had to be. It wasn't just swim lessons. We had swim lessons at little little kids, but my mom made us. It was not a matter if this is not an option. This is something you're going to do. You're going to be on the swim team for a couple years, in fact. And the reason why is because my mom knows how to swim. She took swim lessons.

But my mom is afraid of the water. I remember she signed up for a triathlon at one point. It wasn't a very long swim, maybe like a 500-meter swim in a lake. And she trained and trained and she actually didn't complete the race because she was out in the lake and she just got scared and panicked, all the waves and everything coming against her. And she panicked and she didn't finish. And my mom put us all in Swim team

because she said, I don't want my kids to be afraid in the way that I'm afraid. I want my kids to be better than I am. See, the traps, the danger of being immature and not embodying the rules that you impose and the danger of being hypocrite in saying like, actually don't live up to the thing I want you to live up to

that can't stop us, because if it's actually not about ourselves, but it's about the kids, then we still have to say, no, I want you to be better than I am. And it's worth pushing for it. It's worth setting that up and worth giving your kids a chance

to be better than you. I think that's what a mature parent does. I think that's a mature father does. I think that's what a mature shepherd does. That's the first two dangers, right? Being immature and hypocrite. The third danger is being an impotent father, impotent shepherd.

What does I mean? Well, First Peter, St. St. Peter, writing to the Christians, saying, listen, he says, he says, your opponent the devil prowls like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. So resist him solid in your faith. There's an attack. Like basically, if you're going to be a shepherd, you're appointed the devil, prowls like a roaring line looking for someone to devour. If you're going to be a father, a parent, if you're going to be a Christian in this world, your opponent at the devil prowls like a roaring line looking

for someone to devour. So resist him solid in your faith. Years ago, I had a buddy who shared this with me. He was watching some kind of Nat Geographic, National Geographic TV show or whatever documentary on the life of lions. And he was talking about how in this pride of lions, there is the young, the young male lions. And at some point, the young male lions are going to test themselves. They're going to try to be the leader of the pact, leader of the pride. So these male lions would fight against each other. And the commentator noticed this, he said, note this, note that these young lions,

they're not trying to kill the other one. They're not going for the face to try to disfigure the other line. They're not going for the jugular to try to kill the lion. What they're trying to do is they're trying to actually castrate the other line. They're going for the genitals of the other lion. And that just struck me as so interesting. Why? Why would they have to do that?

Why wouldn't they just try to kill him? Well, the reality is, one lion knows. They both know that if I can render the other lion impotent, he's no longer a threat. If I can take away his power to generate, he's no longer a threat. If I can castrate this other lion and make him powerless, he's no longer a threat. And think about this, this is how Satan works. This is how Satan works in the lives of so many human beings, but in the life. lives of so many men. This is absolutely so important. One of the reasons why fathers have not been

the fathers they're called to be is because of what we know is this is is a is a plagues and epidemics depend. It's the plague of pornography. And what that does essentially, it promises this this illusion of potency, right, promises this illusion of attractants, it's an illusion of generation, but it just renders a person impotent, powerless. It doesn't have to be pornography. It could be anything. It could be the dad who spends his life on his hobbies. It could be the shepherd who spends his time on himself. It could be the Christian who rather than taking this this power, this strength, this competence, and placing that at the service of others just turns it in on himself and simply uses it to bless himself, so to speak. So these three traps, these three dangers.

Immature fatherhood or shepherding, hippocritical fatherhood or shepherding, an impotent father, or shepherding. There's a way out of this, and of course it always goes back to looking to Jesus. Not only the way out of it goes back to looking to Jesus and say, well, Jesus, who calls us to be meek, again, not to be weak, but to harness that strength, not to waste our strength on ourselves, not to fear it, not to use our strength for ourselves, but to place our strength in the service of others. There is a power, again, on this Father's Day.

Moms, you're so wanted, you're so needed. Single people, yes, we need you absolutely as well. But fathers, we absolutely need fathers. to be fathers, to be shepherds, to bless your children. And this is the last thing, the power of a father's blessing. Years ago, I had the chance to sit down. I've shared this before, I had the chance to sit down with an exorcist. And he just, it was over lunch at one point.

He just let me ask whatever questions I wanted to ask about his life as an exorcist. And I was asking about different cases. And at one point, he talked about the case of this one young woman. She's maybe 20 or 21 years old. And what happened was the exorcism was taking a longer time because her father had consecrated her to Satan in the womb or from a young age. And so as she's being delivered, her father, who she didn't have any contact with, he was repeatedly cursing her from afar.

Essentially, he was repeatedly calling upon Satan in some way, I'm not sure how this works, but calling upon Satan to curse his own daughter from afar. He had no contact with her. And so as often as they would free her more and heal her more and more in the right of exorcism, it was slow going because of this repeated curse. Now, on the sidebar, she was gaining more more freedom, more more healing. They showed the priest who was telling me the story, showed him a picture of her father. It was only six months apart.

But his physical demeanor was radically changed. Like from when he began cursing to when he was there, it was cursing. In six months, his health, his appearance had radically transformed and he was emaciated. He looked tortured because I asked the priest, why, and he said, oh, because Satan doesn't like being bossed around. Satan is the father of lies. He's pride itself. And so like, he didn't say he's pride himself. I just said that.

He's very full of pride. He said, he doesn't want to be told what to do. He's being sent to curse this girl. She's being driven back by the power of Jesus Christ. It was tormenting the guy. That's sidebar. So anyways, I'm talking to this priest and I say, wait, that's the power of a father's curse.

So what about the power of a father's blessing? And he looked at me across the table and he was like, oh, no. He said, there's nothing like it. There's nothing like it. the power of a father's blessing. You might be a father who you're with your kids right now and you can just bless them literally by laying your hands on their head

and just say, God bless you, bless you in the name of Jesus Christ. You might be a father who has very limited or no contact with your kids, but again, you can still pray for them and say, God, I ask you to please bless my children in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, and the power of your Holy Spirit. The power of a father's blessing

will undo that immature fatherhood. Power of a father's blessing can undo the hypocrisy sometimes we don't live up to being the shepherds or the people that we're called to be the power of Father's blessing is a way to not walk in impotence but to walk in power because you have the Holy Spirit of God inside of you and Jesus I believe Jesus looks at our culture right now and he sees all these sons and daughters all of them so many of them lost so many of them fatherless so many of them without someone to shepherd them now your kids might be fully grown but you're you But you're still there, Dad.

I believe Jesus looks at our world and says, not just we need fathers, not just we need shepherds, not just we need priests, those people who serve all these roles. But Jesus looks at this world and he says, I need you. Moms, I need you to strengthen those men so they can be good fathers. Wives, I need you to love your husbands so they can be good fathers. Kids, I need you to take care your dad, lift him up, so he can be a good father.

Grandfathers, look to your sons so they can be good fathers. fathers. We need moms and dads. We need brothers and sisters. We need the family. But on this day, we're reminded of the fact that Jesus looks out at this world that is troubled and distressed, like sheep without a shepherd, reminds us how greatly we need. Competent generosity, men who are willing to put their strength at the service of others. How much we need dads.