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Welcome to Sunday Homilies with me, Fr. 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 and other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up@ascensionpress.com Sunday or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe in your podcast app for weekly notifications. God Bless the Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew, chapter 3, verses 13 through 17 Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. John tried to prevent to prevent him saying, I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me. Jesus said to him in reply, allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he allowed him. After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens saying, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to have a seat. So this is one of those situations where every one of us has been there, where you have like something really, really good to eat. I don't know why, but I'm thinking of it specifically. You ever have like a Dove Bar, like so our Magnum, you know, traveling through Israel, there are these things called Magnum Bars. Maybe they have them all over the place too. But that's where I first had my first Magnum Bar, the Dove Bars. Magnum Bars, they have the extra chocolate around the. Around the ice cream. It's just so good. It's just incredible. But what happens a lot of times is I don't know if you've ever been there. You bite into the Dove Bar, the Magna Bar, any kind of good food. And it's almost one of those things where the best part of the thing, like, falls to the ground. So like the Magna Bar here is. Or the Dove Bar here's amazing piece of chocolate. This is one you were saving for the last. You bite into the thing and then the big chunk of chocolate falls to the ground. And so if that ever happens, right, if the best thing that you are eating falls to the ground, we all, we all have this. This kind of a. Well, not all. Some people will say this. You're like, oh, it's ruined. And they'll be like, no, no, no. Five second rule. If you're to the five, you guys know that, okay? I mean, some people are so bold. They do the 10 second rule. And that's like. So I was like, you know, I like the five second rule because it's one of the things like, okay, it's not lost. Of course I wanted to look up online. The 5 second rule. 10 second rules is way too much. I was like, he leaves at least five seconds. And apparently, according to medical websites, the five second rule is a myth. In fact, I got from the Internet this, it said this is generally considered a myth, the five second rule. Because as bacteria can contaminate food instantly upon contact with the surface, regardless of how quickly, regardless of how quickly you pick it up. That really made it did not make my day. That ruined the day. Because, okay, the bacteria can contaminate the food instantly. It's like immediately upon contact. It doesn't need to sit there to accumulate more and more bacteria. It's ruined. It's something I think we don't want to be true because why? Because I don't want the dirty thing to ruin the clean thing. I don't want the mess to ruin the great thing. But that's how it works. Like, I don't. I want the 5 second rule to not be true, to be true. But it's not true. It is contaminated immediately upon contact. And that bums me out. But that's how life works. Until today, until this feast, till the feast of the baptism of the Lord. So this interesting thing, here's again, here's the feast that concludes Christmas is today. This here's Jesus who gets baptized by John in the Jordan. And of course we know this is a mystery because, like, why would Jesus need to get to be baptized? And the answer is he didn't need to be baptized at all because John was baptizing for repentance. Jesus didn't need repentance. But it has everything to do with this. It has everything to do with when something is clean and it comes into contact with the unclean, the clean thing's made unclean. And so all throughout scripture, there's things that are clean and unclean. That doesn't necessarily mean sinful and unsinful. It just means that there are some things that are consecrated to the Lord and things that are not. And when something that was consecrated, something that was clean, something that was like in right order with God, came into contact with something that wasn't, it became unclean. In fact, there's a number of scriptures that go along talking about this thing. If you have an offering dedicated to the Lord and it comes into contact with something like a corpse or comes into contact with something like some kind of, like issue of blood or some other kind of bodily fluid, it makes the clean thing unclean. And that's again, that's just how life works. When something consecrated comes into contact with something unconsecrated, it becomes desecrated. Today, Jesus is switching that around. Why? Because he comes into contact with ordinary water and it does nothing to him. But he, in his presence, does something to the water. And this is exactly what the rest of his life looks like, right? He comes into contact with lepers, he comes into contact with the hemorrhaging woman. He comes into contact with the dead little girl or the dead young man. And their uncleanness doesn't make him unclean, he makes them new. This is the crazy thing. They come into contact with him and something happens. Just like the water comes into contact with him and something happens, it becomes his. The water then becomes his, the lepers become his, the hemorrhaging woman, she becomes his. They come into contact with him. And the mysterious thing is by coming into contact with Jesus, they become cleaned, they become his, they become clean. And that's, that's why I love this, this reality that they come into contact with him and they become claimed. Just like today in the Gospel. Here's this. I mean, just the power of the Father's words over Jesus, just even just to imagine the power of hearing the Father speak over the Son. This is my beloved Son with whom I'm well pleased. Like the depth of power that is in those words. Because if we think about this up to this point in Jesus life, we have no idea if he's done anything remarkable. I mean, obviously he's Jesus. He's fully God and fully man. But. But he's done nothing as part of, as far as we know, that's along with his mission. And yet before he does anything remarkable, before he does anything notable, before he does anything ever gets written down, he's already claimed. Before he does anything that would say, oh, you're a success, the Father says, this is my beloved Son with whom I'm well pleased. Before Jesus, the Son of God does anything notable, he is already claimed. So everything he does from here on out, he does as a certain kind of being, he does as a certain kind of person. Everything he does from here on out, he does as someone who's already been claimed. And this is one of the things we have to, like, we have to take for ourselves. Not years ago, months ago. I was talking with one of our students, and I've known her since she was a child, and she's now one of our students. And I knew that she was raised Catholic, and we were having a kind of a deeper conversation. So I just wanted to kind of get to the heart of things. And I said, can I just ask you a question? She said, sure. I said, okay, it's going to sound weird, but do you know that God loves you? And she was kind of like, oh, no, no. Yeah, I know. I mean, because she was raised Catholic, right? She was brought to church every Sunday by her mom. And it was one of the situations where she's like, oh, no, yeah, I know God loves me. I was like. But I was like, I'm really sorry about this. I really don't want to make this weird. But, like, do you really. Do you really, though? I was. She's like, yeah, yeah. No, I was like, okay. Do you realize that God actually wants you again? Because I think we hear all the time, like, okay, God loves you, God loves you, whatever. But do you ever. Has any of us ever stopped to think that God actually wants you? And I asked her that. Have you ever, like, do you. Do you believe that God has claimed you? Right. Here's the Father who, speaking over the Son. This is my beloved Son, with whom I'm well pleased. Do you. Do you believe that God actually loves you? And because the reality, of course, is that I meet Catholics all the time, or Christians all the time who have heard that God loves them, but they don't actually believe that God loves them. They believe that God merely tolerates them. So asking this young woman, just, do you believe that he doesn't just tolerate you, that he loves you to the point where he wants you, that he actually has claimed you. Because until we realize this, our lives are always going to be spent trying to prove that God should love us. Until we become aware and convinced of God's love for you, until this is really personal, until you become aware and convinced of God's love for you, our lives will be spent trying to convince God to love us rather than spent being convinced of his love for us. It's one of the reasons why we do a retreat called the Fan Into Flame Retreat. And one of the first things we try to get out there is, is this reality that we can't have this relationship with the Holy Spirit. We can't have the relationship with the Father, like we're supposed to until we are aware and convinced of God's unstoppable love for us. And to be aware of that is like, yep, I've heard it. But no, to be aware of this means I realize this in a deeper way. And to be convinced is just. Am so convicted by this. And actually that word convicted is connected. So the word convinced and convicted come from the same root. And the Latin root is with victory, like con, victere, convincere means with victory. Which means that are you aware and convinced of God's love for you? To be convinced of this is to be convicted by this, which means that he's one. And another way to say it is that love has conquered you. So the question today I'm asking everyone, has the truth that God loves you? Has that been allowed to conquer you? Because if it's been allowed to conquer you, that means, okay, my life has been dominated by this truth, right? If he's conquered, if that truth that God loves you has conquered you, that means that your life is now dominated by. By this truth. God loves you as you are. This is now who you are. If you've been aware and convicted, aware and convinced, you are now conquered by that truth. Now, at the same time, people say like, well, yeah, okay, fine, God loves me. And this is one of the ways we dismiss. We say, yeah, but God loves everyone. Yes, you're. You're right. God is love, and therefore he loves everyone. And you're part of everyone. So God loves you. So it's nothing special, right? Wrong. Why? God loves everyone, but you realize you didn't have to exist. Like, just really sit back for a second that you didn't have to be at all. The only reason you exist is because God wants you to exist. So sit with this for just one moment and you realize, okay, God loves everyone. Yeah, yeah. But at one point in time, God determined, I do not want a universe without you in it. This is the depth of God's love. This is. This is the kind of love that we. That needs to conquer us. This reality that at some point in time, here's God. Who. Who? The creator and sustainer of everything that is determined. I do not want a universe without you. Why? Because he loves you in an infinite way and in an infinitely unique way. To allow yourself to be conquered by this truth is to mean that your life is now dominated by this truth, that this is now who you are. And the depth to this is so good because you've been claimed. Go back to Jesus by the Jordan River. I don't know if you know this. But the place where Jesus was baptized is the Jordan river as it empties into the Dead Sea. This is literally the lowest place on the planet. It's the lowest land area in the entire Earth where the Jordan river meets the Dead Sea. And what that tells us is there is no depth to which Jesus will not travel. Another way to say it is Jesus did not come to claim us at our best. Jesus didn't come to claim us on the mountaintop. Jesus didn't come to claim us at our strength. He came to claim us at our deepest and our lowest point. Jesus is claimed at the deepest and lowest point on earth so that we know that he actually wants to claim us at our lowest point. He wants us at our worst. And it's there. It's not on the mountaintop. It's not in our strength. It's not in our victory. It's not in our goodness. It's actually in our weakness. It's in our poverty. It's in our brokenness. It's at our lowest point that he comes into contact with us. And what does that do? That contact? That he comes into contact with us takes our clean uncleanness and makes it clean. Our uncleanness. Your uncleanness does not hurt nor hinder Him. His presence changes us. Right. He comes into contact with us and he claims us. And he claims us at our lowest point. He claims us at our brokenness. It's one of the reasons why St. Paul Writing to the Romans, Romans chapter 5 is one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible. He says this. He says, while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Paul goes on to say, for one can scarcely die for a good person. Though perhaps for a good person, one might find the courage to die. But God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And he makes a conclusion. He says, since therefore we've been justified by his blood, how much more will we be saved by Him? He has claimed us at our lowest point. You are wanted at your worst. And when Jesus comes into contact with that water and the Father claims him, this is my beloved Son with whom I'm well pleased. What does he do? He doesn't just stay there. He goes out into the wilderness. That's when Jesus begins his public ministry. But he begins that public ministry as someone who's been claimed. This is what we have to do, too. Our next step from this moment is we move forward as someone who's Been claimed and claimed. Our lowest point is the last thing I mentioned at the beginning of Mass, that this is the last Sunday in the Christmas season. Next Sunday is the second Sunday of Ordinary Time. And so just. I was thinking about Christmas, obviously, for this whole season. And then there's one Christmas homily that I can remember, actually. I think there's one homily that I remember in my entire life, which it was really short, which you'd think that would have influenced me to make shorter homilies. But I was a seminarian. I was up in Ely, Minnesota, and the priest up there was Father Jim Scheuer. He's passed on. Rest in peace. Amazing man. Incredible man. And he was just. I remember he came out Christmas Eve, and he said so simply, he said, just, you know, merry Christmas, everyone. He said, I got a Christmas card in the mail, and on the front was a. Was this beautiful fir tree, this beautiful, you know, kind of Christmas tree. He said it was just beautiful and lush and just. He said, but it was just kind of like. And he's this tall, like, skinny man. He just kind of bent over. He's like. He's just kind of, like, you know, bent. He says, beautiful Christmas tree. Just kind of bent. And on the bottom of the front of the card, the caption said, God loves you just the way you are, Right? This truth, that here. Beautiful Christmas tree, fir tree, but just, you know, bent. But God loves you just the way you are. Then you opened the card and it said, and he loves you too much to let you stay that way. That God loves you just the way you are, and he loves you too much to let you stay that way. So being aware and convinced of God's love, being conquered by that love, and by being claimed by that love doesn't mean we do nothing. Doesn't mean we don't grow. It doesn't mean anything like that. But it means that as we leave here, we leave differently. Jesus didn't enter the wilderness in the hopes that after all the fasting and battling the devil, that he would finally be loved. Jesus didn't go out and do miracles and heal people with the idea that after all of this, he'd finally be claimed. Jesus didn't serve the Father and pour out his life with the notion that, okay, at the end of this, this will make me worthy of being loved. So this will make me worthy of being claimed. He entered into the wilderness already loved. Jesus entered into his ministry already claimed. And this is what we, every one of us, needs. You and I, you are already loved. You are already claimed. But what do we do? We pray with the idea that, okay, when I'm done with praying, then I'll be loved. When we do the right things, with the idea that, okay, when I'm. When I'm done doing the right things, I'll be good. And then I'll be loved. No. You pray. We pray as someone who is already loved. You serve as someone who is already loved. And you and I begin. Or we continue our journey into the wilderness of life as someone who has already been claimed. We've already been claimed. And we've been claimed at our lowest point.