Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 7/23/23 Parabellum: An Enemy

Episode Date: July 22, 2023

Homily from the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time The enemy can't win, he just wants you to lose. The Church has been established by Jesus Christ Himself. And yet, the Church has sinners and sin within Her ranks. The enemy of God and humanity has done this. We need to be aware of sin in the Church and sin in our own hearts. If we stay awake and alert, we can guard against sin in the Church and in our lives.Mass Readings from July 23, 2023:Wisdom 12:13, 16-19Psalm 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16Romans 8:26-27 Matthew 13:24-43

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 33777.7. 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 13 verses 24 through 43. Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep, his enemy came, and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.

When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have these weeds come from? He answered, an enemy has done this. His slave said to him, do you want us to go and pull them up? He replied, no. If you pull up the weeds, you might uproot the wheat along with them.

Let them grow together until harvest. Then at harvest time, I will say to the harvesters, first collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning, but gather the wheat into my barn. He proposed another parable to them. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full grown, it is the largest of plants.

It becomes a large bush, and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches. He spoke to them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast, that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened. All these things, Jesus spoke to the crowds and parables. He spoke to them only in parables to fulfill what had been said through the prophet. I will open my mouth in parables. I will announce what is laying hidden from the foundation of the world.

Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field. He said in the reply, He who sows good seed is the son of man. The field is the world, the good seed, the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil.

The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The son of man will send his angels and they will collect out of his kingdom all those who cause others to sin in all evildoers.

They will throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. Whoever has ears ought to hear the gospel of the Lord. So if you remember last week, I talked about how I don't like board games,

I don't like card games, and the number of people asked me about this and like said, Father, you know, there's something wrong with you. And I said, yes, I understand that. There is something wrong with me. And yet, I don't know if everyone has the experience of like why I don't like these card games, why I don't like these board games, because I mentioned that there's times where I still told the story last week of playing a ticket to ride and how my brother-in-law was cutting me off. And I was like, oh, okay, I'm not going to get mad, just going to stop playing the game. And someone's like, that's an overreaction. Well,

again, here's my backstory. Backstory is I remember growing up playing games. I have people, This is not to throw anyone under the bus. It's just to tell, you know, stories about my family members when they're not here. But growing up, there are some siblings I have who, when we're playing a game, they made up their mind. Okay, the goal of their playing the game wasn't to win. The goal of they're playing the game was they would choose someone and they would just stop them from winning. And so maybe that's you. And you're like, that's just normal.

That's playing a game. It's kind of fun to play it like that. So, like, you don't have to win. I just like getting under someone's skin. I really like getting their goal. Like keeping them from winning. Yeah, that's called being a psychopath and you're a mean, mean person. And that's my siblings, not all of them, a couple of them.

They played like that. So I'm like, I'd rather not play like this. If you're actually going to play, not to win, you're just going to play to make me not win, I would just rather not play. And yet that's how some people play life. You know, last week you started this little summer series called Parabellum. It comes from this Latin phrase, Civost Pacham, Parabellum. If you want peace, prepare for war.

and this recognition that as we're following the game of life, as we're following the way of the disciples, we're following the life of Christ, there's opposition. In fact, Jesus talks about this in the gospel parable today, the first gospel parable where you have the landowner, and he plants good seed, he plants wheat in his field, and then an enemy comes along and plants weeds. In fact, it's really fascinating because back in the day, in the first century,

there were laws on the books that prohibited this exact thing, because they knew it would completely ruin the crop and completely decimate the landowner. There were laws that said you couldn't because apparently people were trying to do this. You know, it's fascinating to realize that when you plant weeds in someone else's wheat, you don't get anything.

You're just preventing them from having the kind of crop that they wanted. In fact, there's two results from planting these weeds or two reasons why the landowner says don't let them grow together. The first is, I've heard, because these weeds are called Darnell. And Darnell, when it's early on, as it's growing,

it grows and behaves a lot like wheat grows and behaves. And so you can't really tell the difference between what is a weed and what is a piece of wheat. They look so similar at first. The other reason is because Darnell is a poisonous plant. And one of the things it does is it has this massive root system and actually it entwines its roots with the roots of wheat. And so you can't actually pull up the darnel.

actually pull up the weeds without pulling up the wheat. And it's so telling because what's the son of man say, right? What does the farmer say when his servants come to him and say, I thought you only planted good seed? I thought you only planted wheat. Why are the weeds here? And he says this line, it's so telling. And it's one of the reasons why parablem,

it's one of the reasons why we need to prepare for war. He says, an enemy has done this. An enemy has done this. Why are there weeds here? An enemy has done this. And now Jesus is saying in the parable, this is so important for us. He says, the kingdom of heaven is like this. I don't know, just stop on that for a second.

He says, Jesus says, this is what the kingdom of heaven is like. Not just this is what the world is like. This is what bad people are like. He says, this is what the church is like. This is what the kingdom of God is like. The kingdom of God, as it exists on this earth, is just like this. There are wheat and there are weeds. And this is not what God wants.

but it's what he's willing to tolerate. And so what we have to realize, our first step is we just have to realize, I can't panic. That when here we are in the church, here's Jesus, who says very, very clearly, the kingdom of heaven is like this. The church is like this. And it's from the very, very beginning, he doesn't want it, but we can't panic. You have to realize this is just, if you're going to be in this world,

if you're going to be in the church, if you're going to be in the kingdom of heaven that Jesus himself establishes, we have to understand this is what it's like, and we can't panic. So back in the day, I remember reading a book called, Wild at Heart by a man in John Eldridge. In this book, he tells this story about, it's deed A Plus One. And there's this group of American soldiers, and they've made it past, you know, they've stormed Normandy.

They've made it into inland. And at one point, there is this group of soldiers, and they're kept down, they're held at bay by these Germans who are in a farmhouse, and they're shooting at them. And so there's this general, General Norm Coda, who comes along, and he asks the captain who's of these men who are pinned down. He says, why aren't you taking that farmhouse? And the captain looks at the general and he says, well, there's Germans in there, sir, and they're shooting at us. Almost as if, it's like, yeah, we can't do anything because there's an enemy.

Almost as if we've made it past the beach, we didn't expect anyone to keep shooting at us. Why aren't you taking the farmhouse? Because there's Germans in there and they're shooting at us. And so the general, General Koda basically looks at this man and he says, okay, you don't know how to take a farmhouse? No, I don't. He says, okay, sit here and start shooting at the house. and I'll show you, with my men, I'll show you how to take a farmhouse

where there's Germans who are shooting at you. And apparently every story I've ever read says that he then takes the two grenades that are strapped to his chest, pulls them off, pulls the pins, and he like, his men throw their grenades into the windows. General Cota, himself, the general, kicks down the front door, throws in his grenades,

waits, they all explode, and then the Germans are all arrested and they run away and they get killed. He goes back to the captain, and he asks the question, he says, okay, you've seen how to take a house. Do you understand? Do you know how to do it now?

And the captain says, yes, sir. And General Court of Response and says, well, it won't be around to do it for you again. I can't do it for everybody. You've got to do it now. And that's essentially, sometimes we can find ourselves in that place of that captain with his men who are pinned down saying, they're shooting at us. There's something going on. There's an enemy.

Jesus even says this. An enemy has done this. We can be taken by surprise by the enemy, by the fact that the enemy actually is very accurate. I want to highlight this. The enemy is very accurate. There's a religious sister, her name's Sister Miriam James. She's a Salt Sister. She's the Society of Our Lady of Most Holy Trinity.

She came to campus last January. She gave this incredible talk. She's an amazing, amazing person. She gave this amazing, incredible talk where one of the lines she said is, it just struck with me, and I wrote it down because it was so powerful. She said, your wounds are not arbitrary. Your wounds are not arbitrary. You look at your life, you look at your heart, your soul,

look at yourself, and realize, okay, I've got all these wounds. Your wounds are not arbitrary. They're not arbitrary for at least two reasons. She said, one is because oftentimes our wounds are connected with our sins. A lot of times the wounds we're carrying into relationships, the wounds were carrying into life, wounds of fear and distrust, that oftentimes they're the result of our sins. But the second reason why is because the enemy has aimed at, he's designed his attack to create the maximum amount of damage.

And just think about this. Let's get actually, let's get real for a second. Okay, here is the kingdom of heaven, the church, that has wheat and weeds. And an enemy has done this, Jesus says. Sister Miriam says that our wounds are not arbitrary. And one of the reasons is because the enemy has designed his attacks to cause the maximum amount of damage.

In the last 21 years since 2002, the church, the kingdom of heaven, the church that Jesus himself founded has experienced probably one of the greatest wounds. All I have to say is, if I were just to say right now, the scandal, everyone would know what I was talking about. And if you didn't know what I was talking about, I would just add one word and you know exactly what I'm talking. If I say, the priest's scandal. Everyone knows exactly what I'm talking about. And just, can you imagine, I can't imagine, I've been trying to think about this, I mean, because it's marked my whole life, right? It's marked the second half of my life. It's marked my entire priest in my end.

I can't imagine a worse thing. Honestly, I can't imagine anything more insidious, anything more diabolical, literally diabolical than what some priests have done to some children. I can't imagine. I mean, I've heard of parishes that have, you know, embezzlement. issues or fraud issues or theft going on either by the pastor or by the staff. Like, yeah, that's bad. I've heard of other things going on in the church, but I can't even fathom anything worse

than what we've been living through. In talking with some people who have experienced that abuse, I can't imagine anything more devastating. Like lives just completely distorted, lives completely devastated. even families. Now, I know a number of families, again, in that conversation of part of their family story now is their priest. And done this to one of their siblings, or maybe their parent. And even if this was years and years ago, there aren't scars, there are still wounds.

I mean, it seems so common that there's rarely adequate healing that here's a family that just is marked by this. again, not just scarred, but like still wounds that still fester. An enemy has done this. And you imagine, I can't imagine an attack that could create as much or more damage than this. I mean, think about even people outside the church. What's the first thing they think of when they, let's see me walking through the airport? First thing they think of. If they're not Catholic, first thing they think of is, oh, oh, yeah, pre-scandal.

if you've been ever, ever tried sharing an invitation, hey, come with me to Mass. And your non-religious friends like, okay, but what about like the priest thing? Can you imagine anything more devastating? Not just to the lives of the people involved in this and the families of the people involved in this, but also to anyone who might need God's grace, who might need a message of hope. And you're like not in the Catholic Church. Even people who are in. Even people who think about this, people who love the church, people, I like, I like,

Like myself, I just, when I had my conversion and encountered the Lord Jesus and then had a second conversion where I realized that that home is the Catholic Church and that Jesus himself established the Catholic Church as the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, just in love with the church. And maybe you had that same experience of, I love the church and then all of a sudden all this garbage comes out and you realize what in the world? I cannot imagine an attack that would maximize the damage more than this. And you realize, again, parablellum, prepare for war, we realize that the church leadership was not prepared for this war inside.

Should have been. Completely should have been. That's one of the reasons I'm really grateful to the Boston Globe, the people who have exposed this story, who have exposed this scandal, have exposed this abuse, because it needed to have stopped and it needs to stop. In fact, I know that here's the church now since 2002 that has done more to protect kids, has done more to make the church a safe place

and not only a safe place, but a place where we are prepared for war. We are prepared for the evil that exists in the church as well as outside the church. And yes, I do think now that the church leads the way in this, but maybe you'd say that, yeah, fine, father, too little, too late. And you might be right. Maybe not too.

Maybe it's not too late. Maybe it's not too late to save the next kid. Maybe it's not too late to protect the next generation. But we have to be willing to do that. We have to be willing to actually be willing to fight. I saw this video recently of a man who was, he was recalling, he's describing a video he had seen. This video was of a convicted child predator named Jack Reynolds. And this child predator had described how he selected his victims, how he selected the people

who was going to groom, the children who was going to groom. And he said, I didn't look for any qualities in the kid. I looked for qualities of the family. He said, the first thing he looked for is he said, the first thing I looked for was if the father was a threat. He said, if the father was a threat, I stayed away. And the man commenting on this video said, that means a couple things.

First, it means dads, you need to be present. You need to be present enough in your kid's life that if someone comes along who wants to do damage to your kids, you're there. The second thing he says is, fathers, that means you need to be a threat to anyone who wants to hurt your child. And now that doesn't mean that all those who have been abused had dads that were distant or dads who weren't a threat.

I know people, again, who had fantastic fathers who still got caught up in this, but I would say this, that what we need to cultivate is what we talked about a couple weeks ago. What are the qualities of a good man? What are the qualities of a good dad? Competent generosity. This ability to be present, this ability to fight for work. one's kids. And we need that, again, parable. And we need to be prepared for war inside the church as well. That's why the answer to bad priests is not no priests. The answer to bad priests is good

priests. The answer to bad priests are willing to actually fight. The answer to bad priests are holy priests. That's the reality. The answer to weeds, apparently in this life, isn't just pulling them up. The answer to weeds is more wheat. And that's why it's one of the other. It's one of the the reasons why the church we can never be, and I'm grateful to the Lord for this, is that for the rest of my lifetime and maybe for the rest of all time, we will never, as a Catholic Church, ever be able to be self-righteous. Because we recognize, we recognize that the weeds are powerful in our church. In Christ's church, the weeds are there. We can never, ever be self-righteous. And I, as a human being, I as a priest, can never, ever be self-righteous

and say, we've gotten and taken care of because we realize the answer to weeds is not pulling them up. We can't be for whatever reason. Answer to weeds is more wheat, which means it has to start with me. It has to be personal. That starts to all of us, right? If here's the kingdom of heaven and you're part of that, if here's the church and you're part of the church, that means that we realize, and Jesus says, here's the church, here's the kingdom of heaven, and there's weeds and there's wheat in here. That means that evil is not out there. Evil is in here. That's one of the reasons why Alexander Sholshinitsyn, knocked on him last weekend. Alexander Sholtenitskin, he had said very, very clearly, he says,

the dividing line between good and evil passes straight to the human heart. Evil is not out there. The weeds are not out there. The weeds are in here. There was a phrase that came up after World War II called the banality of evil. There was a man who was instrumental, architect of the deaths of millions of people. His name was Adolf Eichmann. Maybe you heard this story.

that roughly 30 plus years ago, Israeli agents captured Adolf Eichmann, put him on trial. And among the people who testified that, yep, Eichmann was there, Eichmann did all these horrible things, was a man named Yehiel de Nour. Jahel de Nour, he went to the courtroom, and he looked up and he saw Adolf Eichmann. As he, his eyes rested on Adolf Eichmann,

this man, Ejel de Nour, he just broke down, sobbing and screaming out loud. And it wasn't because he looked into the eyes of a monster and was just terrified to this man. He looked at Adolph Eichmann. Apparently the story goes, Healdaneur looked at Adelfe Eichmann.

And he just saw a guy. That's it. He saw a man just like himself. He saw a man who seemed mild mannered who seemed polite. He seemed just like him. And he came to the conclusion. Eichmann is in us all. This is the story of all of our lives,

that the line between good and evil, past, the theme and heart, weeds are not out there, weeds are in here. Weeds are inside me. So parablem, right? I need to prepare, if I'm going to be part of the wheat in God's kingdom, I have to do all that I can

to cultivate the wheat in my own heart, which means what we talked about last week, it means conversion, it means repentance. It means saying no to all the weeds, no to all the things they can. me away from the Lord and saying yes to God with everything I got I have. And here's the crazy thing. It takes only one. What does Jesus say at the end of the parable? He has three parables today. One of the parables is it just takes a little bit of 11 to raise the whole dough.

Just takes a little bit of 11 to change the whole story. And that's true in your life as well. Because here's the truth. If you might look in your heart, and I can look at my heart. We can look at the state of the church right now and say, my gosh, it's over. It's done. And we realize your story is not over yet. The church's story in this world, in this country, in this time is not over yet. All it takes is one. All it takes is a little leaven. All it takes is someone who just, what if just one person still?

What if in your life we just said, okay, no, I'm going to choose against this vice. I'm going to choose against this and I'm going to choose virtue. I'm going to say no to this, these weeds. I'm going to say yes to the Lord's grace. It only takes one to save one. Earlier this month, a movie came out. It was released on the 4th of July called Sound of Freedom. Starting Jim McAveeel.

This movie, this is the last thing. This story is about a man named Tim Ballard. And Tim Ballard used to work through the United States government. He came across a number of children who were caught in slavery. In fact, the estimates are that right now in this world, there are over 50 million people enslaved in our world, that almost 25 million, 24.9 million people are in the labor and sex trafficking. So Tim Ballard, basically he said, I can't operate within the constriction of the U.S. government.

So he started this program called Operation Underground Railroad that does everything they can to save children from sex trafficking. At this point, I think they've saved over 4,000, maybe 6,000 children. because here's Tim Ballard. Actually, it's not even Tim. You listen to interviews that he's given. The movie reveals this, that his wife, at one point, Tim was like, they're these children. They're being bought and sold day after day, hour after hour.

And his wife said, well, we've got to get you out of there. And then at one point, she was praying. And she said, actually, you're the one who needs to go into there. Because you're the one. You're the only one with your background, your skills, your abilities, who can go in there and you can save one of these kids because it just takes one to save one. My invitation is that everybody,

if you haven't seen this movie yet, to do what you can, if you can stomach it, if you can look at evil, to be able to go with that movie, the sound of freedom, but then to do what Tim Ballard has done, to do it we're all called to do, which is, okay, I'm going to choose to be the Levin.

And maybe that has to do with stopping trafficking. Maybe it has to do with stopping slavery, but maybe it has to do with saying, I see the example of one person who stood up. I see the example of one person who saw the weeds and said, listen, I can't stand this. We need more wheat. That involves repentance.

That involves conversion. That involves saying no to everything in my life that brings death and saying yes to everything that brings life because here's the deal. As I said, your story's not over. My story's not over. The story of our church in this world is not over. There is still time to have more wheat.

but there will come a time when the story is over. Jesus says that at the end of the whole deal. He says there will come a time when the story is over and everything that's weeds will be gathered up and burned, destroyed. So God doesn't, he doesn't approve of this evil that's happening. And there will come a day when there will be a reckoning. There will come a day when there will be a judgment.

And not only will all the weeds in the church be burned up, but all of the weeds in my heart and in your heart will be burned up and I'm just praying that on that day there's more wheat than there are weeds but the story isn't over yet the weeds are growing the wheat can still be planted but there is an enemy he doesn't want to win

he just wants you to lose so see vos pacham parabelum If you want peace, if you want to win, prepare for war.