Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 9/28/25 The god of Our Generation

Episode Date: September 27, 2025

Homily from the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time When comfort is our god, we end up underliving our lives. Modern life has done a powerful job of reducing stark deprivation. This is a good thing. But one of the results is that many of us have become captive to comfort. Mass Readings from September 28, 2025: Amos 6:1a, 4-7 Psalm 146:7, 8-9, 9-101 Timothy 6:11-16 Luke 16:19-31

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.

He reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke, chapter 16 verses 19 through 31. Jesus said to the Pharisees, there was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who had gladly had eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of a very, Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. And from the netherworld where he was in torment,

he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off. And Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames. Abraham replied, my child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime, while Lazarus likewise received what was bad. But now he is comforted here, whereas you are in torment. Moreover, between us and you, a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.

He said, then I beg you, Father, send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them lest they too come to this place of torment. But Abraham replied, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them. He said, oh no, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent. Then Abraham said, if they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.

The gospel of the Lord. Wait, you to have a seat. So a number of years ago, I read this book. I've talked about about it before, but in it, it talks about this Shinto Japanese concept of Misogi. So the idea came out of the Shinto religion that is, you would do this. If you wanted to be purified, you would go into like a frozen river or freezing river or like frozen like ocean, that kind of situation. And you'd go in one way and the idea is you'd be so enter into this discomfort to such a degree

that you would emerge change. Like the idea, right? The idea is that you do this difficult thing and it purifies you somehow. So that's the Shinto idea. In the West we got a hold of that. And in the West, people kind of changed it. And they made it into any kind of like physical or emotional or even like mental challenge. So the author of this book, he said that he and four of his friends, one of their misogis,

was they went to the Pacific coast and they would dive down and pick up a rock that was really heavy. And they would walk on the ocean floor for five miles. So one guy would dive down, pick up the rock, walk as far as he could, then down out of breath, swim to the top, next eye, swam down. And they went for five miles, carried this rock on the bottom of the ocean for five miles. This really difficult thing. Other MISogis could be something like, you know, I want to run a marathon or on an ultramarathon or climb like a 14 or that kind of situation.

It could be something like a digital detox. Like for the next month, I'm not going to look at a screen. Or for the next month, I'm going to stay off the internet. Some people have the Mesogis where I'm taking a cold plunge every day for the next thousand days. That kind of idea. Actually, I knew a guy. I have a friend who his Mesogi was he fasted, literally fasted, no food for 40 days. He just had water and supplements.

That was all he had. And he said he got hungry around day 30. But it was one of those challenges, one of those challenging Masogis. A Masogi you could have next week is you could say, okay, this upcoming Saturday, I want to walk 30 miles. So there are only two rules for a Masogi, and the first rule is you can only have like 50% chance of succeeding. So it can't be something that you're just guaranteed to do. So if you're a marathon runner, your Marsogi is not going to be a marathon because you have pretty good chance of succeeding. But if you're not one, then maybe that could be your Masogi.

50% chance of succeeding. the second one is you can't die. So those are the two rules for Mosogi. Big chance of failure, but not that bad of failure. That's the concept. It comes to this idea. It comes from the book, The Comfort Crisis, by a man named Michael Easter. So the thesis of the book is this,

that our modern obsession with convenience and comfort has made all of us weaker, less resilient, less happy, and unfulfilled, that we become so preoccupied with being comfortable that it has wreaked havoc on us. And so he gives some examples. He says, our obsession with being in comfortable temperatures, like basically, for the most of us,

we live our lives right around 72 degrees all of the time. That does something to us. It actually, it's ruined our body's adaptability to temperature, as well as our caloric burning ability. Not only that, but we have this easy access to hyper-processed, like super-tasty but really calorically dense food, coupled with almost constant automated travel.

Meaning what? Means we have as much food as we possibly want and we can take a car everywhere. Or we take an escalator, or we take an elevator. Or our food comes to us. We're no longer hunter and gatherers. We're like, you know, senders of DoorDash. Like that food comes to us.

And so what happens is, here, our expense of being constantly comfortable is that over 80% of Americans don't get enough physical activity. In fact, he did a thing where the average American walks an average of 4,800 steps a day, which is less than half than the worldwide average. We also eat about 500 calories per day more than Americans did in 1970, and the result is that obesity is at record highs, and the chronic related illnesses is astronomical. One of my favorite quotes of the whole book was not only about lack of movement, not only about what kind of food

and what we're at, but about boredom. He said this. It says this. It says this. It says, Finally, on June 29, 2007, boredom was declared dead. Because that was the day the iPhone was introduced. And so we have this situation, right, where we have endless streaming capabilities. We have endless scrolling. We can constantly fill our minds, our eyes, our ears with as much of someone else's creativity as possible. And here's the problem. The problem is that robs us a boredom.

And boredom is essential for creativity. Bortem is essential for problem solving. In fact, boredom is essential for self-reflection. don't have it, studies show that people who can't tolerate boredom are more prone to anxiety, they're more prone to impulsive behavior, they're more prone to decision, poor decision-making. We're not bored anymore because we're too comfortable. The last thing he highlights is that we're so obsessed with comfort that we can live our lives without ever taking any real risk or ever facing any real challenges. In the book, it highlights research linking reduced

childhood outdoor play and risk-taking with increased adult anxiety, that when people don't face challenges early on, they become less confident and more fearful as they age. And this thought, right, this reality is so pervasive. This captivity we have to comfort. We're captives of comfort. There's a man, his name is Matthew Chandler. Matthew Chandler said this phrase, and it just so powerful. He said this. He said, comfort has become the God of our generation. The comfort has become the God of our generation. And I've shared that idea, I've shared that sentence with so many people over the last couple weeks, and it's one of those situations where 100% of the time that I share that phrase,

comfort has become the God of our generation, that everyone I've talked to affirms it. And here's how they affirm it. I say the sentence, comfort has become the God of our generation. People go, uh, because they're looking at themselves and saying, oh my gosh, that is me. Why? Because how much of our lives we say, I just want to be comfortable. Not a big deal. I just want to be comfortable.

I'm bothered by every and each convenience. This is taking so long. The microwave. Delivery to my door. Taking so long. Or, ah, I'm freezing when I'm mildly chilled. We say, I'm starving. My older sister, she has her kids.

When their kids would ever say, Mom, I'm starving. She would say, when did you last eat? If it was today or yesterday, you're not starving. You're just hungry. But that's what we say, right? We have this idea that I have to be, Every moment that I'm uncomfortable is a moment that's unbearable.

Think about the desire we have to escape. I don't like what I'm thinking right now. I don't like what I'm feeling right now. So I'm just going to put something on in the background. It's going to put the AirPods in and just kind of tune out. Why? Because I just want to be comfortable. And here's the problem is this.

Sometimes people have made that. Sometimes we've made that the goal of our whole life. And that's just the goal of this moment. We've talked to people like this. And they say, you know what? I don't care where I live. I just want to be comfortable. I don't need to make a lot of money.

I just want to be comfortable. I don't care what my job is. I just want to be comfortable. And this is the crazy thing. I don't just want this now. I want this become the entire purpose I exist. And paradoxically, because of so much comfort, we're experiencing negative effects,

and we end up underliving our lives. If comfort is my goal, I will end up underliving my life. And comfort has become the God of our generation. And yet, at the same time, we know this, that's nothing new. I mean, everyone wants to be... Look at the first reading. First reading for the book of the prophet Amos.

See if this sounds familiar to us. Here's Amos, preaching to the people in Zion, the people in Israel. He says this, woe to the complacent in Zion, lying upon beds of ivory. I don't think they just have, like, wooden beds. It's not even like nice wood. Imagine having a bed made of ivory. That's like over the top. It goes on to say,

stretched comfortably on their couches. This is us. Get home, just flop down, start scrolling. Goes on to say, they eat lambs from the flock and calves from the stall. I'm there eating veal. Kobe beef is on the menu every single day. Improvising, music on the harp.

Jazz. Sign of comfort. Jazz. There it is. He says, they drink wine from bowls. I don't know if you noticed this. What are they using to drink wine? Not like cups,

not glasses. The largest receptacle I have, that's how I'm going to drink my wine. Lastly, he says, they anoint themselves with not just okay oil. They anoint themselves at the best of oil. Here's the thing. This might comfort might be the God of our generation, but it is, it's been around for a while. We can ask that question, where does that come from? Like, where does it come from?

This desire to make comfort an idol, I think comes all the way back to the beginning. We know this in the book of Genesis. When God makes us, he makes us for three things. he makes us for love, he makes us for labor, and he makes us for leisure. And leisure is part of that comfort, right? But we know that with the fall, all three of those things that were made for get distorted. We're made for love, but we vacillate back and forth between the desire to use other people or the desire to be indifferent to other people, right? The desire to get what I can out of someone else or the desire to just kind of ignore them completely. This is the rich man in Lazarus. When it comes to labor,

We know we vacillate between this. Either labor is toil. It's just drudgery. It's what I have to do. Or labor is what gives me my identity. My work gives me my worth. And lastly, leisure. This is us.

Leisure is either collapse, right? You get a break on a Friday night. You get a break for a weekend. It's just like walk into the room, fall flat on your face, on your bed. Or it's time to stop, and I can't stop. It's time to take a break. Time to have leisure.

And I can't stop. I can't stop eating. I can't stop drinking. I can't stop binging. I can't stop scrolling. I can't stop thinking about work. I can't stop. This is us.

I can't stop consuming. Remember, that's why idle has become the God of our generation. Because we don't make gods out of bad things. Comfort's a good thing. We make gods out of good things that we treat like ultimate things. If you're wondering if comforts one of your gods, we say, a God is what? A God is what I love the most. A God is what I serve the most.

The God is what I build my life around. And if I say, I just want to be comfortable, comfort may become my God. Our God is what we fear losing the most. So we can see, hopefully you can see, that how comfort has become the God of our generation. And at the same time, comfort is a good, right? This is not a demonization of comfort.

Because we know the opposite, right? We know that deprivation can often lead to desperation. Like just not having stuff. Deprivation can lead to desperation. I was listening to a historian. He was talking about how horrible the Great Depression was. Like he said, we can't, even now, really fathom the impact the Great Depression made on the lives of so many Americans.

He said his dad told them about how he signed up for the Air Force during World War II. And he said, in the Air Force, they had to take benzadrine in order to stay awake. This is kind of like an amphetamine to keep them awake on these 16-hour bombing missions. And then they'd have to take sleeping pills in order to get to sleep because a benzodrine was so powerful. Then they would have sinus infections, but have to go up to 30,000 feet and their eardrums would blow out. And they were told before they went on these missions not to wear parachutes because if the plane went down, the Japanese would behead them on site. And he said, dad, why did you volunteer for the Air Force? And his dad said, well, compared to the Depression, it wasn't that bad.

We know this. He said, when he joined the Air Force, it was the first time in his life they'd ever had steak and ice cream. we know right we don't treat deprivation as if it's just the best deprivation can often lead to desperation we also know this comfort can lead to complacency my favorite psalms is psalm 30 and in it it's a prayer and the prayer is god give me neither riches nor poverty but give me neither comfort nor deprivation but give me only my daily bread why otherwise i may have too much and to sown you and say, who is the Lord? Then in my comfort, I might become complacent,

or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. My deprivation can lead to desperation. But you guys, we're not made for either of those things. We're made to live a full life, and too many of us are underliving our lives. So Michael Easter, in this book, he talks about a thing called toughening.

Because he says, the theory is this, that being completely overwhelmed by negative, stressful environments is not great. Let's put that out there. Being completely overwhelmed and ground down by stressful environments is not the goal. On the other hand, being totally sheltered is not optimal either. There should be some amount of stress that gives us the optimum physical and psychological well-being.

So they did this study at Stanford, where they studied squirrel monkeys. And what they did was, as they're raising these squirrel monkeys, one week out of every 10 weeks, they took a couple of them away from the rest of their group, away from their families. and they had to survive one week, every 10 weeks away from their families. As they grew up, they said this, when the monkeys grew up, they were significantly more resilient and capable in the real world than their sheltered siblings. That they became the leaders, they became the doers,

and this is what God wants for you. God wants us to be the people who are capable, us who cease to underlive our lives. But even more powerfully than this, if comfort is our God, we end up missing God. If comfort is our God, we end up missing the whole point of our lives. Why? Because the goal is not deprivation. The goal is not suffering. The goal is not discomfort.

The goal is God. God himself. The obstacle is our captivity to comfort. Our unwillingness to be uncomfortable. Once again, this is not the message is pursue discomfort. The message is this. Pursue God's will and have absolutely no fear of the uncomfortable. But if we're bound by the idol of comfort, we will never be able to love.

If you and I have to be comfortable, if comfort is our God, we'll never be able to love. Why? Because we know that ever since the fall, once again, ever since the fall, love always involves sacrifice. That every time we truly love anyone or anything, it involves sacrifice. I will never be able to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength if I refuse to be uncomfortable. I'd never be able to love anyone close or far from me

if I'm afraid of being uncomfortable. Why? Because love always involves sacrifice. But here's the thing. Not arbitrary sacrifice. Well, you might call it intrinsic sacrifice. So arbitrary sacrifice. I watched this movie back in like high school. It was a dark comedy.

I always thought it started Bill Paxton, but Chachabit told me it starts Matthew Broderick. Anyways, it's about the character, the male character is in love with Meg Ryan's character. And she does not like him, but he's obsessed with her. And at one point throughout this dinner, he's looking at her and he says, how much do I love you?

He holds up his hand, he says, do I love you enough to break my own finger? And then he breaks his finger at the dinner table. Again, it's a dark comedy. And he's like, see, that's love. I remember seeing that as a kid going, that's crazy? And then I remember, I thought, how is that different than the cross?

Because that's what, I wonder if you ever heard that saying. I asked Jesus, how much do you love me? And he said, stretched out his arms, and said this much and died on the cross. I'm like, okay, is that Jesus saying, How much do I love you? Let me break my own finger? And the answer is no. Why? Because the guy at the table in the movie, that's arbitrary. I'll put myself through pain to try to demonstrate love. Here's the reality. In the cross,

Jesus didn't pursue the cross. He pursued us. And the way to get to your heart was by way of the cross. The point wasn't suffering. The point was you. It just so happened that the price of loving you, the price of loving me is the cross. I was talking with a young woman recently. She said both of her parents have a pretty significant illness. Even though she lives relatively close to them, she said some days it's so hard to go over to their house. I don't know if you've ever had that experience where there's people in your life.

You're like, I know I need to go see them, but it's just so hard to do it. But love involves sacrifice. She said, even though I love them to make that choice, to become uncomfortable. to embrace discomfort, to drive over to their house, to walk in their door, to see them in their weakness, to see them in their illness. She's like, it's difficult to do, but it's worth doing. Why? Because that's love. I don't know if you've ever had that experience where there was something you knew you had to do.

And when you did it, you're like, okay, that was hard to do, but I'm glad I did it. Say, it was hard to love them, but I'm glad I chose to love them. The alternative is what? The alternative is the gospel today, the rich man who just walks by Lazarus. it could have cost him very, very little, but he wasn't willing to part with his God of comfort. So what do we do? Here's the last thing. What do we do?

Like how do we, if it's true, that comfort is the God of our generation, how do we destroy that God? I say we do this. We do what Christians have done in every generation. And it's basically, you can call it a Catholic Massogi, but really what it is, is just a simple word called mortification.

mortification, it's my fancy word. If you know Latin or if you know Spanish, Moria, like to die, to kill, it made mortification is you simply put something in yourself to death. So there's two kinds of mortification. There's active mortification and passive mortification. It's like a masogi, basically that sense of like, okay, I am bound by the idol of comfort. I'm bound by the idol, the god of comfort. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make myself intentionally uncomfortable.

I'm going to fast a little bit. It could be something as simple as, you know what, I'm going to keep eating the same food I eat because I need to nourish myself. But when it comes to drinking, I'm just going to drink water. That'll be my little fast. Or it could be like, I'm giving up coffee. Or how about this? Like this person who says, I'm going to give up putting sweetener in my coffee.

That'd be my little fast. And then you learn how coffee is supposed to taste like. Or it could be something like this. I'm going to skip a meal. You know, you'll survive if you skip two meals back to back. No big deal. It'll demonstrate something to yourself. Demonstrate to yourself like, wait a second.

I can be uncomfortable and still be me. I can be uncomfortable and put to death the idol of comfort. Or maybe a media fast. For the next week, I'm not going to look at my screens. Or next week I'm going to delete Instagram, Facebook, whatever your social media of choice. It doesn't matter what it is. Just something where you realize

I can be uncomfortable and still live and I can put that God of comfort to death. That's active mortification. Passive mortifications are more powerful. Active mortifications are the ones you choose. passive mortification is the ones that choose you. It's the idea of the inconveniences. If an act of mortification is,

what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave on time and show up on time. That's my new mortification. A passive mortification might be, I'm going to stay calm when people are late. I'm going to stay calm and offered up when someone's driving in the left lane on I-35 and going slower than they should. A passive mortification is that sense of,

okay, I'm cold, I'm cold, no big deal, I can handle a cold. Or I'm hot, no big deal, I can handle the heat. I'm thirsty, no big deal, I can handle my thirst. Passamortification is just receiving the discomfort that comes to you, knowing that if I embrace this, it will put the idol of comfort to death. Because too many of us are afraid to pursue God's will

because it'll make us uncomfortable. And so what ends up, we end up doing is we dread discomfort. but if we embrace it, if we're willing to pursue God's will with no fear of the difficulty, then not only will we have freedom, not only will we have God, not only will be able to live God's will, but the moment we do it, we'll stop underliving our lives.