← Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
03/16/25 The Place of the Way: The Crossroads
00:25:19
Homily from the Second Sunday of Lent. A big life is a series of small crossroads. Life happens at the crossroads. Life is also a series of small crossroads that might seem insignificant, but add up to a life of beauty and meaning...or a life potentially wasted.
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Fr. Mike Schmitz
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 Luke Glory to you, Lord. Chapter 9, verses 28:36 Jesus took Peter, John and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying, his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, this is my chosen son. Listen to him. After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. I'd like you to have a seat. So this is one of the things when I'm flying on a plane, if the plane has like a seat back, like video monitor, I like to scroll through the movies and whatnot. But a lot of times what happens is I end up watching the same movies over and over again. So if there's nothing new or nothing compelling, nothing I really want to see, I will watch Forrest Gump. That is my go to number one go to movie is Forrest Gump. The other movie is the Intern. If you've ever seen that. Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway. It's the fascinating thing about this. Here's what strikes me about both these movies. A they both make me cry. Apparently I'm going for that. B the thing about them is they both neither of those movies have any kind of like big crisis moment. Like, you know how a lot of movies have they have like the Big heist, or they have the big showdown, they have the big fight. They have the big. The big courtroom scene. You know, you can't handle the truth. They have, like. They have the big moment. They have the big crossroads moment, right? Where this is the moment of conflict. But if you've ever seen Forrest Gump or seen the intern, you realize that just kind of like, no, there's no big crossroads. There's no big moment. There's. It's just kind of like Forrest Gump. This happens, then this happens, then that happens, then that happens. That's all it is. Same thing with the intern, Robert De Niro. He's retired. And then he starts doing this and then this and then this. And it's just kind of like, that's the movie, that's the show, and there's no big crossroads. I thought that's so strange. But at the same time, that's kind of life, like, in a lot of our lives, there's. There are. In our lives, there are a few big crossroads. But it's not that there's no crossroads. It's more like almost every moment of our life. It's all crossroads. It's as if this. It's as if where we live life is one crossroad after another. You know, we started Lent just last weekend or two weekends ago, a couple days ago. We started Lent a while ago. Here we are, second Sunday of Lent. And we realized, as we enter into Lent, this is a time of asceticism, right? But asceticism, as we talked about a couple times, comes from the Greek word asisis, which means training. And so we're not just here to be disciplined. We're not just here to be slightly better, slightly healthier, slightly fewer bad habits. We're here to train. Training means we have a goal, and the goal is to become like Jesus at the end of this Lent. I want to be someone that I'm currently not. I want to be able to do something I currently can't do. So we're training, which means we're entering in, like, the Jesus dojo, like the dojo of Christ with the Way of Christ. And that's why we're following after Jose Maria Escuba, who wrote that book, the Way. We're following after Takashi Nagai, who is that Japanese Catholic man who he dedicated his life to, that training. And that's why this series is called the Place of the Way, which is English for dojo. And so last week, we talked about. Or two weeks ago, we talked about how to enter that place of the way is to enter into silence. And then last week we talked about how to enter the place of the way is to enter into the desert. Basically, put down your comforts, put down your crutches. And now the reality is the place of the way is the crossroads. Because where we live life is one crossroad after another. Not necessarily big crossroads, but just one crossroad after another. It's kind of like in the gospel today. In the gospel, it's a big moment. You write in Luke's Gospel, chapter nine, you have Jesus with Peter, James and John. He's on the mountain. And there's this big moment of transfiguration where Jesus reveals his glory, he reveals his identity, God reveals his mission, all of that really big moment. But that's something that's not the crossroad. We miss the actual crossroad. The crossroad is when they come down from the mountain. Because it says in chapter nine, when Jesus comes down from the mountain, he set his face towards Jerusalem. That the big moment we miss the small moment, the most important moment for this big transfiguration moment. And yet the crossroad moment is that the reality is the mountain was the crossroads. But again, if we're not paying attention, it'll just look a lot like Jesus. Life is this happened and this happened and that happened and that happened. And we can miss the crossroads if not paying attention. So again, following the life of the man Takashi Nagai, that Japanese Catholic, you know, we recognize that he wasn't born Catholic. He was actually born and raised Shinto. When he went to high school, he got deeply into science, really influenced by Western science and Western thought. And so he thought that since Western science disproves the myths of Shinto, that all religion must be wrong, that he just became an atheist, became committed to this notion that God doesn't even exist. He went to medical school, but everything shifted for him. We talked about this last weekend. Everything shifted for him at his mom's death, that all of his professors, all of his teachers said, you know, this is the human body, that's it. But when he was with his mom as she died, he realized there's something different here. There's something different between my mom being alive, my mom being dead. He became convicted in some ways of the reality of the spirit. He was also really captivated by the thoughts of a man named Blaise Pascal. Blaise Pascal was a 17th century French mathematician and physicist and inventor and. And Catholic philosopher. And Blaise Pascal wrote this Book, or it's not really a book. It's a collection of thoughts called Penses, which is French for thoughts. And Nakashi found that book Panses. And he just. He really respected the fact that Blaise Pascal was the mathematician and inventor and physicist. And he was always. He was very compelled by Pascal's faith. How can someone be a scientist and have faith? And so Blaise Pascal kept leading Tekashi closer and closer through various crossroads to a place of faith. In fact, one of those crossroads was where Blaise Pascal basically said, if you want to believe, get on your knees and go to Mass. If you're struggling to, like, actually give your heart over to the Lord, get on your knees, start to pray, and go to Mass. So Dakashi Nagay, he didn't. This is one of the crossroads moments. He didn't know how to do that. He didn't know how to pray. And he also didn't want to go into a church and ask anyone how to pray. So what he did was here at medical school, he said, if I can find a Catholic family, I'll just live with them. I'll be a boarder with them, and I'll just watch them pray. And so he found the Moriyama family. They were Catholics from for generations. And he asked if he could stay as a boarder, as a medical student. And they said no. And so the next day, he came back again. One of those crossroads moments. He could have just given up, but he didn't. And the Moriyama family took him into his home, into their home, and he just lived with them. And he watched them pray. At one point on Christmas, the elder Moriyama, he invited Tekashi to go with them to Christmas Mass. And at first, Tekashi said no. Tekashi said, I'd rather not. He declined. And then he changed his mind. And this is one of those crossroads moments where when he changed his mind so much and his life changed because he had never been to Mass before, even though Blaise Pascal had said, if you want to believe, just go to Mass, he didn't do it. But when he got to Mass, he wrote about this. He said he got to Mass and something unexpected happened. He said he had this unexpected. This is his quote, this unexpected intuition that there was a living capital s. Someone present in the Urakami Cathedral, that as he entered into this place of prayer, this place of worship, he realized, okay, he sensed God's presence. So he recognized that there is more. There is someone. But then something else happened. The second thing is, as 5,000 Japanese Catholics stood up to recite the creed. It convicted and confused him. It says like this in the book A Song for Nagasaki. It says this credo from 5000 urakami throats was more like a defiant roar and a battle cry. Why did he feel disturbed because he was disturbed? Was it a sane reaction to fanaticism? All the more unsettling because it was expressed in a very un Japanese like way? Or he reflected ruefully. Was he disturbed because ordinary people could make an uncomplicated stand for goodness and truth while he was the footloose academic and ethical dilettante? You know, that night he didn't come to faith in Jesus, but that night he took a step. It was enough light. He had to take one more step. And that's one of the things that we have to realize when it comes to crossroads. We want a floodlight, right? We want that million candle power flashlight that I can see way down the road. But typically, God only gives us a little votive candle, right? You know, the votive candle, a little small candle where it gives me just enough light for one step. And that's where we find ourselves, in crossroads. And we find ourselves in crossroads because that's where we live. That's where life happens. And the question is, of course, how do you know which crossroad will change your life forever? I think the answer is you don't. But they all do. Because, you know, we started this lent, this place of training, each one of us saying, I'm going to make a choice. I'm going to make a step. We started 10 plus days ago at a crossroads. And the crossroads was, okay, I'm going to leave. I'm going to go away from sin, toward God. I'm going to go away from distraction and noise to a place of silence. I'm going to go away from my comforts and my crutches to the desert. We took a step and we just had enough light for that one step. Tekashi, after he took that step on Christmas, the next day, something incredible. Well, he had another crossroads. So the Moriyamas had a daughter, Midori. And Midoriya was the same age as Tekashi, and she was teaching at another city a ways away. But for Christmas, she was back home. And she had. Ultimately, she had an appendicitis. And Tekashi had to literally saved her life. He carried her through the winter to the hospital, and it was his actions that saved her life. But in the course of, like, even just carrying this woman, Midori, feeling her heart beat on his back and seeing her face. As she recovered, something changed in his heart. Some kind of affection for her grew in his heart, and he began to wonder if someone like her could ever love a man like him. He didn't have much time to ponder that, though, because within a month or so, he was sent off to fight in Manchuria. Not to fight, but to be a medic in Manchuria. Before he left. Before he left, Midori, this woman that also shared affection for him, had knitted him a sweater, saying, it's cold in Manchuria, and I want you to wear this not only as a sign of my love, but also as a sign of my protection. In fact, Midori had gone into prayer, and she said this prayer that's captured in the book. The prayer was to God and to Our Lady. And Midori prayed for this man that had saved her life. And she said, please don't let him die in Manchuria. Please bring him back safely. She said to God, he doesn't know you yet, dear Lord. But everyone in the hospital spoke of his great generosity and his dedication to his patients. Then she talked to Mary. Said, Mary, he looked so sad last night when he was alone. You know, that he lost his mom. Please, Mary, take her place. She said, I promise I'll pray a rosary for him every day and try to write him the kind of encouraging letters his mom would have written to him. Please help me do it. Well, that's what Dory did. As Tekashi was off in Manchuria, she prayed. And while he was at Manchuria and when he came back, there were two moments, two crossroads moments for Tekashi. Part of his brokenness was that Tekashi would drink a lot and he would go to brothels. And at one point, he found himself out with the boys, and they were drinking. And as they were drinking, they made their way towards a brothel. And one night, he was there. He went actually into this young woman's room. And at a certain moment, he realized, I don't want to be here. This is a crossroads moment. I don't want to be here. And so he said that he placed money into this young woman's hand and then left. She cursed him out. But he writes in his book, he says he discovered later on from a letter written by Midori that at that precise moment, he wrote, a young woman was praying for me before a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Nagasaki Cathedral. And that moment was a crossroads moment for Tekashi, because that's one of his wounds. Drink and brothels, alcohol and Prostitutes. In fact, when he came back from Manchuria, he arrived at the platform in Nagasaki, and he looked out over this city, and his heart was divided. He was at a crossroads. His heart was divided. And he returned to Nagasaki with this, with. He was disillusioned. He had despair. He was discouraged from all the things he had seen. And he wanted to find comfort. As he said it in one of two Nagasakis, he said he stood at the wharf and looked up the two Nagasakis. One is the Nagasaki of carnal love, right? You can find it down in certain areas of this city, places of the night dedicated to loose women, to sake and fun. And in the book, it says, close to this carnal Nagasaki is the other city, the Nagasaki of Mary, which is also a place of love, but of a love sustained by prayer and sacrifice and service. So you can discover that second Nagasaki in the Urakami Cathedral, in the hill of the 26 Martyrs, in the Ura pilgrim shrine in the monastery built by Maximilian Kolbe. And he stood up on the wharf trying to make up his mind, should I go down into that valley or should I climb that steep hill towards the cathedral? And at one moment, he thought of Midori, and thinking of her, that made up his mind. He stood at that crossroads and he decided that he would go to the. He would actually go to her, and he would go to the cathedral. And he did. He left the old Tekashi and he began journeying towards that new man. And the crazy thing I love the amazing thing is that that crossroads did not only change his life, it changed his entire family tree. That one crossroads, it wasn't a big decision. It was just another decision in the course of a whole bunch of decisions. He went to Midori. He went to the cathedral. And the interesting thing is it didn't work out immediately. He had a really uncomfortable, awkward conversation with Midori. They misunderstood each other. Then he went to the cathedral, and he was just so perplexed by the fact that he. He didn't see the fruit. He didn't immediately give his life to Jesus. But here's the important part. He did set his face in the right direction. That's us. That's us in this moment. We can take that step in this moment. We're not going to immediately see the fruit of the decision we make at this crossroads. But to take that step and to set our face in the right direction is everything. That's why Jesus after the Mount of Transfiguration. In Luke, chapter nine, it says, as he came down from the Mountain. And a bit later, it says, then he set his face towards Jerusalem. And we know what that means. That means another translation says, he resolutely determined to go to Jerusalem, knowing. Knowing what? Knowing that when he got to Jerusalem, he would be falsely accused, he'd be arrested, he'd be betrayed. He be. He'd be crucified, and that he would die. Yet Jesus resolutely determined he set his face. In fact, Isaiah, chapter 50 says this. He set. He set his face like flint. He resolutely determined. It's kind of like Abraham in the first reading today. Abram, right? That God called Abram, and Abram responded. He took that crossroads, and God called him, and he said, okay, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm entering this covenant by cutting up these animals. I'm sitting here, and I don't know if you caught the line. It said birds of prey swooped on the carcasses, but Abram stayed with them, that he made his decision. And so he. He stayed with that decision that he. Not only did he come to a crossroads and make that. Make that choice, but. But he, just like Jesus, set his face. He, like Jesus, resolutely determined not to leave. In fact, that's what St. Paul writing to the Philippians today. It's just so powerful. He says, I invite you, brothers and sisters, stand firm in the Lord. Why? Because this. This crossroads will not only change your life, this crossroads could help others and their crossroads, even in ways you might never know in this life, even in the midst of what looks like defeat, even in the midst of what looks like failure. So Tekashi began going to the cathedral. Later on, he was going to propose. He would propose to Midori. But in the meantime, he knew that he needed to get his heart right with God. He went to the cathedral, he talked to the priest, and he was assigned a mentor, a janitor. And now here's Tekashi, who was this incredible surgeon or incredible physician. And the person teaching him is just a lowly janitor. But he wanted to know everything he could about Jesus. But at one point, he came to this place of, okay, this is the crossroads. This is the. The. The. I know that Jesus is who he says he is. I know that he has founded the Catholic Church. I know I need to become Catholic. But when he told his father, his father was incredibly outraged by this, incredibly upset. And so Tekashi came back to Nagasaki with that sense of, like, what do I do? Here is my father. I'm the number one son Like I'm the firstborn son, I can't disappoint my father like this. And he went to the priest and asked him about it. And the priest directed him to a man named Jinzaburo Moriyama. Jinzaburo Moriyama is this old, old man when Takashi talked to him. But Jinzaburo told Takashi about when he was 22 years old in, in 1864, almost his entire family was killed. And ginsburg, again only 22 years old, was rounded up with a bunch of other Catholics. And they were brought to this place where they were repeatedly tortured. They were tortured by a man named Moriaka, who was an ex samurai and who thought it would be super easy to be able to crush the spirit and crush the faith of all these Catholics and bring them back to the Shinto religion. One of Ginzaburo's friends was a man named Yasutoro, who was only 26, four years older than Zin Jaburo. And one of the things they did for him is they nailed this 26 year old into a wooden box nailed shut in the middle of winter, into a box that was so small that he couldn't stand, he couldn't sit and he couldn't lie down. And they just for 20 days he remained in this one box in the middle of winter, completely naked until he finally died. Boraca tortured him to death. Moriaka also realized that Ginzaburo wouldn't crack because his faith was so solid. So Moriaka had this idea and he took Ginzaboro's 14 year old brother, whose name was Yujiro. And right outside Jinziburo's cell, he had his 14 year old brother stripped naked, had him whipped mercilessly. He tied him onto a cross and for 14 days not only beat him, but would pour cold water over his body until his body turned blue. At one point, Moriaka came to his senses and he said, what am I doing? He says, am I a samurai? Am I a man? And yet here I am torturing a child to death. So the last minute he brought Yujiro to their sister where he died in her arms. So here's Takashi and he goes to this old man, Jinzaburo, and he says, what do I do? I have to make this big decision. This is my big crossroads. And Jensborough says, not too many years ago, Moriaka's son, this same man, his son invited me to his home. And his son was now a religious brother. He was a Catholic. Moriaka, the man who had tortured and killed, I think 36 Christians, Catholics, his Son was now Brother Moriaka. And at one point, they were at this place where Yujiro had died and where Yasaturo had died and the other 34 Catholics had died. And he was overwhelmed by this grief. And Ginziburo fell to the ground and started weeping. And brother Mariaka, kneeling next to him, also was weeping and crying and saying, I'm so sorry for what my father did. I'm so sorry for what my dad did to you. And that's where Ginzaburo turned to this brother, turned to his brother in Christ. And he said these words. He said, you, father thought he was doing his duty as a government official, that he really believed that the Christian faith was subversive and a danger to Japan. He confessed his mistake in his own way when he carried my brother to my sister. Matsu says, you know, I prayed for your father ever since. I prayed for your father ever since. And I am sure that Yujiro prays for him from heaven. Knowing that you've been given the faith makes my brother's death all the more meaningful. It's another example of the great truth that you understand better than I do, Brother. God is always in charge. Difficulties, darkness and suffering become opportunities for new graces if we keep trusting. Ginzaburo shared that with Tekashi. So that's where you're invited to do Trust that faith in Jesus is worth everything. Tekashi left still troubled until he opened up that book by Blaise Pascal, what do I do? I'm at a crossroads. And his eyes fell on these words of Blaise Pascal that said, there is enough light for those who desire only to see and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition. It was like when he heard that there is enough light for those who desire only to see. So he made his choice that he would at this crossroads, he would be a Catholic Christian. At this point, he would ask for the priest who he had been training under, studying under the janitor, to baptize him. And he would set his face firmly to follow after Christ. This is the last thing. This is you and me. This is us. This is this path. That's this way. That's this Lent, this dojo, the place of the way that your days and our days are not. This happened and that happened, and this happened and that happened. The place of the way is the crossroads. And each day we get to decide. Each moment we get to decide. When you started Lent, you decided, this is what I'm going to do to train myself to become like Jesus. This is what I'm going to stop doing to train myself to become like Jesus. And whether you've done that well or done that poorly so far, each day, each moment, each choice is a crossroad. A crossroad. A choice to become more and more like Tekashi, even more importantly, more and more like Jesus. Because each moment as a crossroad is training in the place of the way.