Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 7/30/23 Parabellum: This Battle

Episode Date: July 29, 2023

Homily from the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. When we are faced with the challenges and obstacles of following Christ, it is easy to become overwhelmed. But we do not have to solve all of the potential issues. We are simply called to face this problem and take the next step.Mass Readings from July 30, 2023:1 Kings 3:5, 7-12Psalm 119:57, 72, 76-77, 127-128, 129-130Romans 8:28-30 Matthew 13:44-52

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. He reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Glory to God. Chapter 13, verses 44 through 52. Jesus said to his disciples, The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds the pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full, they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad, they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Do you understand all these

things? They answered, yes. And he replied, then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household, who brings from his storeroom, both the new and the old, the gospel of the Lord. So in all this reflection on games, I know that the irony is not lost on me, that the person who says I don't like games for the last three weeks, we've been talking about games, because there are some games that I like. I like word games. I like trivial pursuit, one of my favorite games. Code names is a fun game.

I really like Scrabble words with friends. Bananagrams. You guys don't banana grams. So the banana grams is kind of an example of one of these games, where it's just like, so if you've never played, people who introduce it to me, they called it pick. I don't know why, but basically you get a bunch of tiles, like Scrabble tiles, and then they say go and you have to start assembling words based off the tiles that you have. And if someone uses all their tiles, they say peel, in the game, pick, and you have to

pick a new tile and go. And it's one of those situations where if it's ever the first time you've been playing this game, it goes so fast and it's really, really easy to. get frustrated because people, someone's like, peel, peel, peel, they keep making their word and you keep having to get more tiles. And it's one of those, it's frustrating when you're the one playing it. It's really funny kind of to introduce someone to the game. And they're like, no, you just, bah, you know, because it's happening so fast. And it's like, but I would have played this word. I would have played that word. And it's one of those situations where you realize that in your frustration, you cannot

waste time wishing that things were the way they've been. Right. The same thing is true for if you're like, I can't wait for my turn. I see the perfect word there. And then all of a sudden someone plays another word and the board changes. And you have to just like, okay, I can't waste time thinking, but it was, I had the perfect word for this. Or if you've ever played the children's game, spot it, like spot it is fun, but you have to find the figure you're looking for, the image you're looking for on this thing, and someone finds it and the board changes. And it's one of those situations. Again, it can be really frustrating, but you can't waste any time wishing that things were different. It's frustrating because the board is constantly changing.

But the reality is that's the nature of the game. Last week, we talked about this. Sometimes there are people who play the game just to make you lose. They're not even interested in winning, like the evil one. But the nature of some of these games is that the board just keeps changing. And that can be really, really frustrating. But that's just how it goes. We started this series three weeks ago.

And this is the last of this little summer mini series. based off of this Latin phrase, Sivostpachim parabelum. If you want peace, prepare for war. Because we recognize that as we pursue the Lord, as we try to enter into this life of grace and live this life of grace, there is opposition we experience.

And there is an enemy that comes against us. But also, we realize that there's an environment that we're in the midst of, and that environment is constantly changing. So we have to. If you want peace, if you want joy, if you want to live the life of a Christian, we have to prepare for that.

We have to be ready for the fact that our environment is actively or even passively trying to destroy our faith. Our environment is either actively or passively trying to steal our joy. So a couple of years ago, there was a book by a man named Andy Ware. It's called The Martian They Made Into a movie with Matt Damon. It's really, really compelling, super fun. Basically, the story behind this is Matt Damon's character is a guy named Mark Watney, and Mark Watney is a part of NASA,

and he goes on this Martian exploration to explore Mars with a team of astronauts. They get to Mars, and pretty quickly, there's this massive storm. They think Mark Watney has been killed, and so basically the rest of the crew has to say, we have to leave him here. We can't rescue his body,

and they just start, they take off of Mars and they start heading back to Earth. Turns out Mark Watney was not dead. He was just unconscious, he has pierced through by some kind of like a piece of metal, and he basically wakes up, Grigand's consciousness and realizes that everyone's gone. And they've left him on Mars.

He's 300 million miles from Earth. You can imagine that in that moment, it's so fascinating how the book is, and even the movie just captures this too. But it's fascinating because you can imagine that in that moment he'd be just overwhelmed, crushed by the weight of this task that is completely impossible. How do you make that, what would ultimately be an understanding? nine-month journey from Mars to Earth, when it's just you. Like, you can't do it.

It's completely impossible. So he could waste time wishing it was otherwise. I wish it when I wasn't here, wish things were different. Or he could waste time being crushed by the immensity of this task. But he doesn't. It's just this genius where he just says this, okay, I'm going to solve this problem. So as I said, you know, he was unconscious and he got pierced through by this piece of metal. So here, I'm going to take out the piece of metal.

and I'm going to put some antiseptic on there. I'm going to clean out the wound. I'm going to staple it up. Like, that problem solved. Okay, what's the next problem? Well, the next problem is, I need food. Okay, how do I solve that problem? And just the next problem, I need water.

How am I going to get water? The next problem is this. And he was just remarkable, just really, really cool way of just saying, yeah, the board has changed. The environment has changed. I don't know how in the world I'm going to get to my destination. I don't know how I'm going to make that nine-month journey, 300-million mile journey from Mars to Earth.

All I know is I need to solve this problem. That's all. Take this step. And this is what it is to walk in faith. To walk in faith is simply just to, okay, I'm to solve this problem. To walk in faith is, I can't waste time wishing things were otherwise. I just have to take this step. And so I think one of the greatest examples, and I've used this example before, but I think she is just, she's the witness.

She's the model of our faith. And that's our lady, right? Mary is. And not just Mary in heaven, but Mary on earth, Mary as a teenager, when Archangel Gabriel appears to her in the beginning of Luke's gospel, what happens? We know the story, that basically Archangel Gabriel. Gabriel appears to Mary and says,

here's God wants you to be the mother of his son. Mary asks her clarifying question, and she asks, how can this be? Since I have no relations with a man, Gabriel gives her that answer, the power of most high will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the son of God. And Mary gives her yes.

Right? Mary gives her yes. She says, let it be done it to me. I'm the handmade of the Lord. And then the line comes right after this. The line that we end almost every gospel when we recount this story is, as soon as Mary says, behold, I am the handmade of the Lord.

let it be done to me according to your word. The next line is, then the angel departed from her. And that's it. That all Mary was given was, okay, here's the next step. You can imagine that she had a lot of questions. You can imagine that she was just like, but then what? She wasn't given to then what? That's what it is to walk in faith.

It's this constantly changing environment, this constantly changing board. We have to be prepared for this. That's Civost-Pachim, Parabellum. We need to be prepared for war, prepared for the fact that I won't know the step after this. All I know is I need to take this step. So I've shared many times that when I encountered the Lord as a teenager, the number one question that dominated my life. I prayed about it every day.

I prayed God, I begged God every single day. God, what do you want me to do? God, what do you want me to do? And literally for 10 years, every day, every time I prayed, it was, God, just tell me, what do you want me to do? It wasn't until much later that I realized that I wasn't asking God, what do you want me to do now? It was, God, what do you want me to do with my life?

I wanted this answer of, God, what's my life going to look like? What do you want me to do for my whole life? And yet, God doesn't, he rarely, he rarely tells us that answer. What he tells us is, here's what I want you to do now. So I should have changed my prayer. I mean, yes, I want to know my vocation. Yes, I want to know, God, what's the trajectory you want me on? But a better question is not just, God, what do you want me to do with my life?

A better question is, God, what do you want me to do now? Because I can't solve the problem of life because why? Because the board keeps changing, the environment keeps changing. Life keeps changing. So I just get to say, God, what do you want me to do now? Or maybe I get to say, God, what do you want me to do next? And I realize now, after so many years of praying that prayer and of so many years of trying to follow the Lord,

I realize that that's the way in which God speaks to most of us. In fact, I remember I was just in Israel about a month and a half, two months ago. And someone on the pilgrimage, they said, Father, when did you know you were called to be a priest? Like, when did you really, like, know it for sure? And I said, I think when the bishop was ordaining me, I was like, I'm pretty sure this is what's supposed to be happening. And they were like, really? And I said, kind of. I'm kind of making a joke.

But at the same time, I didn't know until I was ordained. God is calling me to be a priest. Here's what I did know, though. Here's what I did know. I had the encounter with the Lord when I was missionary in Central America, where I was in prayer. and it was incredibly clear, that God was making it so clear. The next step I want you to take, I want you to go to seminary. It was just absolutely clear.

And so I did. And that was all. That was it. I went to seminary. And at the end of that year, I was like, well, things went well. I guess I'll go back next year. And then went back the next year. And I think, all right, things are going well.

So I guess I'll go back next year. And it was one of those situations where it was just, okay, here we go. This is, God, you put me on this course. And you haven't told me to get off. In fact, it was a couple of months before I was ordained a deacon, so you make a couple of big promises when you get ordained a deacon. And I remember kind of having a little panic moment where I thought, oh, shoot, I don't know. God, do you want me to take this next step?

Because I've just been saying this to another year of school. Like, I don't, am I supposed to take this next step? And I was in adoration. And it was one of the top five moments of grace in my life at that point. And I was overwhelmed by this conviction. The conviction was this. It was a conviction of trust. And it was, God, first, God, I trust that you want me here.

I remember that moment where it was very clear, you revealed to me. This is the next step. So, God, I trust that you want me here. Second, God, I trust that if you want me to leave, you'll let me know. That you brought me here. So I trust if you want me to leave, you'll let me know. Third, God, I trust that if you want me to leave, you'll let me know in a way that I can't miss. Because God knows me.

God knows you. He knows what we pay attention to. He knows what we're oblivious to. And so, God, I'm just going to trust that if I can't. I keep praying and I keep listening to your voice, you'll let me, if you want me to leave, you'll let me know in a way I can't miss. And then the fourth thing is, the big fear was like,

you know, I get ordained in the next day. I'd be celebrating my first mass, and they're in the front row would be the girl. So I was supposed to have gotten married to you and God, we're just a day late. So the fourth act of trust was, God, I trust that if you want me to leave, you'll let me know, in a way I can't miss

and you're going to let me know in time. You're going to let me know in a... Because why? Because God, you're good and you love me. So, of course, you'll do this. And that was very. one of those, again, it was just a moment of grace where it was just, okay, God, I trust you. In this constantly changing life, where the board keeps changing, the environment keeps changing, I can trust you. That was this incredible moment of grace. Because that's how life is,

right? It keeps changing. We have to prepare for that change. We have to prepare for war. In fact, there's a pilot, a fighter pilot named Colonel John Boyd. His nickname was 42nd Boyd, and they called them 42nd Boyd because he was in a number of dog fighters. a number of fighter plane fights, and he won all of them in under 40 seconds. He was just incredible pilot, and he didn't just know how he flew. He actually studied dog fights from World War I, World War II,

the Korean War, Vietnam War, and he just, he became an expert. In fact, he came up with this decision-making process for fighter pilots or for anybody, and he called it the OODA loop. And OODA simply stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. So that's what you do in every situation. We want to the situation whether you're a fighter pilot, whether you're a soldier, whether you are a business person, whether you're a Christian, to be able to say, okay, every situation, the O ODA loop, observe, orient, decide, and act. So the three of those, the observe, decide, act, those are kind of intuitive, right?

Obviously, we're going to make decisions. I have to observe. Okay, what's the data? I have to decide. They can make a decision based on the data. And then I have to act. Like, that's all intuitive. But the secret that Colonel Boyd talks about is that second O, the Orient.

And what Orient ultimately means is two things, at least, as far as I understand it. First, it means what are the mental models that I'm working with? Meaning, what did I think would be the case? What would I hope would be the case? What did I wish would be the case? So I'm observing this. This is how the data is. But then my orientation is, okay, I have to get to the place where I accept and understand

what's going on. Because, again, we can waste so much time. Like, I was going to play that cube or I was going to play that thing. And instead, he just says, listen, we have to set aside our mental models. The things we would have wished would be the case and realize this is actually, I'm going to orient myself to my environment. I'm going to accept it and I'm going to understand it. That's what it is to orient.

I'm not going to waste time being frustrated that things aren't like I wish they were. I'm going to observe how things are and then place myself in there. And I place myself in that situation. I orient myself and I have an understanding. You know, in the first reading today, you have God who appears to Solomon. And he says, ask me of anything. And Solomon says, I ask. I'm young, I'm ruling this country, I don't know how to rule.

I need understanding. And of course, God says that, we heard it, that since you didn't ask for a long life for the life of your enemies, but ask for wisdom, there will be no one who ever has lived over will live, who will have as much understanding as you. And we ask the question, like, what is understanding? In fact, you know, understanding is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. You know, wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, piety, fortitude, fear of the Lord.

The second gift of the Holy Spirit is understanding. Solomon asked for this gift of understanding, which is, again, observe, orient, orient, decide, act, and orienting, I have to understand what's going on. So what's understanding. Understanding is, I'll say this, it's knowing the value of the revealed truth, knowing the value of this moment, knowing the value of what's happening right now. Basically, knowing what's important? What's not important?

What do I need to pay attention to? What do I not need to pay attention to? You probably have understanding when it comes to, if you've been driving your car for more than a couple of years, you have understanding, which means. that you know what to pay attention to. As you're driving down the road, you know, okay, that's important, but I don't need to be distracted by this.

Remember when you first were driving a car and everything was of the same value? It's just like, okay, I'm distracted by everything because I don't know what to pay attention to. I don't know what's worth avoiding. Understanding is when, okay, this is important. That's less important. Understanding is knowing the value of a thing.

There's sometimes where we're looking at something and we have no idea what the value is. Something's in our life and we have no idea. So I would love the TV show Antique Road Show. I don't know. Actually, I don't love. I like the clips in Antique Roadshow because the clips usually show one of two options. In Antique Road Show, either it's the person who says,

this has got to be worth something really, really expensive. You know, it's got to be worth a lot of money. And then the assessor says, this is probably a nice family heirloom, but you're not going to get any money for it. I don't know why I like that. Maybe it's some Shaddenfoyed. I don't know. But the other is where someone says,

I don't know if this is garbage or not, we just lying around the house and they say, are you kidding me? This is a treasure. So a couple examples. Actually, I found two examples online. One was this sculpture. It's a part of the Barbara Hepworth sculpture. It was at a high school in Cornwall, England. And it was on the head teacher's desk as a paperweight. The librarian of the school had said, hey, you know, there's the British version of Antique Roadshow, whatever it is, is in the area. That looks old.

Let me just bring this sculpture in and see if it's worth anything. And so she brought it in, and they assessed it, appraised it, it's worth, at the time, it was worth $981,000. I think the world's most expensive paperweight. It's just sitting on high school teacher's desk. And the other one I just thought was so fascinating was this man in Corpus Christi, Texas, right down south, right by the border. And he had this oil painting of this Mexican man working the field. And he said, I just, I really like this painting.

It just, there's an image of it I saw it. And it's thought, oh, yeah, this is, that's some beauty to it. It's a nice oil Mexican-style painting. I liked it. Is it worth anything? Turns out, it is a painting from the famous Mexican painter, Diego Rivera, and it's worth over $1 million. And it's just like one of the situations where,

you have just hanging up my house and I kind of liked it, did not realize what I was looking at. The spirit's gift of an understanding is knowing the value, knowing the worth of a thing. And so here's what Jesus says in the gospel today. If you have understanding, because the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, buried in a field. And what's it worth? That's a question. We can now actually ask ourselves.

What is the life in Christ worth to you? What's the life in Christ worth to me? What is living as a Christian, living as a Catholic? What is the life in the church? What's that worth to me? You know, St. Paul says in this letter to the Philippians chapter 3, he says, for his sake, for Christ's sake, I have accepted all as loss. I've accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much refuse that I may gain Christ. Paul says, I could lose everything. I could lose everything. And I would consider it so much refuse.

Now, actually, the term that St. Paul uses in Philippians chapter 3 for refuse is literally the Greek term for excrement. Basically, St. Paul is saying that I consider everything in my life, nothing more than what you would flush down the toilet. Compared to the knowledge and the love of Jesus Christ, it is a treasure in a field. We have to ask ourselves, okay, do I have that spirit of understanding that I can look and say, that's worth everything? Jesus goes on to describe, he says, the man, in the parable, right?

He says that the man finds this treasure in a field. What does he do? Normally, if you find a treasure in a field, I imagine you just take it. Like, okay, I find a treasure in a field. Oh, just steal it. But he says, no, no, what he does is he goes and he buries it. And then he sells all that he has. Joyfully, in fact, Jesus says,

He joyfully sells all that he has and then goes and buys that field. And he reveals a couple of things to us. One is Jesus reveals that you can't steal the kingdom. You cannot steal the kingdom of heaven. We can't steal the life of grace. That Jesus did not win grace for us for free. It cost him everything. It cost him his life.

His death is resurrection. The life of grace, it's a free gift, but it cost Christ his life. we also realize that it costs us everything. I can't steal heaven. I can't steal grace. I can't steal the life of Christ. I have to be willing to sell everything for the sake of him.

And to realize that it can't be a partial measure, I remember hearing a pastor recently and he was talking about this. He's talking about, he said, his wife, he ended up been married for 30, 40 years. He says, I love my wife. But what did before we got married? She said, you know, I want to marry you.

I want to give my whole. life to you, but my high school boyfriend named Matt, like, I, how about I can have like one weekend a year with Matt, this one weekend? And actually, I was also dating Mark, and so maybe like one or two weeks with Mark per year. But here's the thing, the rest of my time, the rest of my life, the rest of the every year, I'm yours. And I love you so much. I want to give you all the rest of that. The pastor is like, I don't, I mean, I love my wife, but I don't think that's a good deal. Because if I love her, I want all of her. If she loves me, she wants all of me. And if she loves me, she wants to give all of herself to me. And if I love her, I want to give all myself to her. And he said,

Jesus is the bridegroom and we're the bride. Do we say, do we say, Lord, you get most of me? You get 95%. But occasionally, I want to be able to dabble in the things you hate. Like, is that how we approach God is saying, God, I know that you're worth everything to me. I love you more than anything. but occasionally I really like being entertained by the things that crucified you. Occasionally I kind of want to just have fun with the nails. Can I just play with the nails every so often? The kingdom of heaven is worth us selling everything. We can't steal it.

And the board keeps changing, right? The environment keeps changing. Life keeps changing. And the life of Christ you might have chosen five years ago might not be the life that you're living right now and say, this is not what I thought. And again, in those moments, I can be frustrated or I can be prepared. I can be frustrated and say, I wish it were otherwise, or I can be prepared and say,

I get it. This is how it goes. This is the nature of the game. That's why John Boyd, remember Colonel Boyd, 42nd Boyd, he called it the OODA loop. Observe, orient, decide, enact, loop. And he says, you just keep going through that loop, keep going through the loop until the last problem is solved. And so as the board keeps changing, as the environment keeps changing, As life keeps changing, I can resent it or I can be prepared for it.

I can see this as a burden or I can see it as an opportunity and this is the very, very last thing. I can see the fact that the board keeps changing as a burden or I can see the fact that the board keeps changing as an opportunity. I can say, oh, shoot, I have to, every single day, I have to make the decision again for Jesus. Or we could say the board has changed. And every single day I get to make the decision for Jesus. We realize that this is the nature of the nature of the decision. of the game, that if you said yes to Christ at some point in your life, we have to, I have to, say yes to him at this point. Because the nature of the game is that the board keeps changing.

The nature of the game is that the environment keeps changing. The nature of the game is that life keeps changing. And because of that, I get to say yes to Jesus today in a way I've never been able to say yes to him in the past. But I have to be prepared for it. If you want peace, prepare for war. If you want Christ, if you want joy, if you want life, prepare for war. See vos pachim, parabelum.