← Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
03/30/25 The Place of the Way: Home
00:28:18
Homily from the Fourth Sunday of Lent. To look like Jesus, we must learn how to live in the Presence of the Father. When it comes to our relationship with the Father, too often it is marked by hiding our hearts or avoiding His gaze. But we must learn how to live like Jesus, who remained in the Father's Presence at all times and with profound trust.
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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 and with your spirit. A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke Glory to you, o Lord. Chapter 15, verses 1 through 3 and verses 11 through 32 tax collectors and sinners were all drawing nearer to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, this man welcomes sinners and eats with them. So to them Jesus addressed this parable. A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me. So the father divided the property between them. After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country, where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation. When he had freely spent everything, a severe famine struck that country and he found himself in dire need. So he hired himself out to tend to one of the local citizens who sent him to his farm to tend the swine, and he longed to eat his fill on the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any. Coming to his senses, he thought, how many of my father's hired workers have more than enough food to eat? And here I am dying of hunger. I shall get up and go to my father, and I shall say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and against you, and no longer deserve to be called your son. Treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers. So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son. But his father ordered the servants quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and has been found. Then the celebration began now. The older son had been out in the field and on his way back. As he neared the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. The servant said to him, your brother has returned and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound. He became angry, and when he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him. He said to his father in reply, look, all these years I have served you, and not once did I disobey your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns, who swallowed up your property with prostitutes for him, you slaughtered the fattened calf. He said to him, my son, you are here with me always. Everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice because your brother was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and has been found. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to have a seat. So I have a niece. Her name is Lucy. And Lucy's great. Lucy's eight. Lucy is a second grader. But at one point. So this last Christmas, I went home for Christmas break. I was there, I think the day before or Christmas Eve, so the 23rd of December. And I went downstairs my dad's house, and it was a mess. It was a huge mess. And all the kids were down there, all the nieces and nephews. I was like, you guys, we have to clean up the basement. And so every one of the kids, like, launched into action. Every single one of the kids, like, started cleaning. And so I'm cleaning up and then Lucy, she gets up and she just walks around, she picks up a magazine and, like, sits down and starts reading the magazine. I was like, lucy, like, lucy, help. Get up and help. And so she. She gets up, takes a lap around the room and then sits back down with the magazine. Like, even, like, crosses her legs and starts reading the magazine again. I was like, what is happening? This eight year old, I'm like, lucy, get up and help. She looks at me like, what? No. I'm like, okay. So I was. I don't know why. I was like, I really cared about this very much that she would help. And so I'm like, lucy, pick up these socks. Put the socks over there. And she's kind of sort of lollygagging, kind of doing this thing. And I was so like, what is happening, Lucy? So then that happens. The day went by, it was fine, it got cleaned up. And then we have Christmas Day. So we had Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, I got back from mass, it was time to have like dinner with my whole family. Now here's kind of one of the unwritten rules of my family when it comes to preparing a big meal. I don't have a job. Basically my job is to bring the rolls. But I will offer, like, can I cut something, can I chop something, can I stir something? My sisters, my brothers in law, everyone has a job. I'm supposed to bring the rolls. And so I just, I watch and encourage them and then I eat the food. I found this, I was eating the food and sitting at the end of the table. Here's I am, here's my dad, here's my brother, here's my brother in law, we're all talking and at one point the meal is over and all the nieces, nephews, they all get up and they all clean the dishes. And here I am engrossed in this conversation with my dad, my brother and my brother in law. And I realized they made the food and I didn't make the food. They cleaned up the food and I didn't clean up the food. All I did was eat the food and the job went done. And it got done. And I remember, I realized all of a sudden, like, oh my gosh, I'm Lucy. Like, because this is the thing. I'm the fourth of six in my family. Lucy's the fourth, fourth of six in her family. And the thing Lucy's already learned at 8 years old is what I've learned at 50 years old, which is when you're the fourth of six in the family, you kind of don't have to do anything because ultimately it's going to get done. I mean, I didn't, I didn't realize this until December 25th of 2024, but I realize now, like, oh my gosh, that was kind of my role in the family is. Yeah, I, I mean, everyone's going to clean. You could if you want. If you don't, it's still going to get done. Because why? Because I'm the middle. I'm the middle of the middle. Right. So my older brother and I are both the middle, but he's the oldest first boy. So I'm kind of the middle of the middle. I realize that as middle children I have a theory, my middle child theory is this that middle children either choose to be like the center of attention, they have to be really, really loud, they want to get all the attention, or they use their place in the middle to hide. And I realized, oh, my gosh, Lucy and I are using our place in the middle to hide. Like, with that kind of sense of. I just kind of want to go unnoticed because. Why? Because sometimes when you're noticed, it gets uncomfortable. Sometimes when you have to be seen, it gets uncomfortable. And so what I like to do is what I think Lucy wants to do, which is I just want to avoid attention. I want to avoid being seen. I want to avoid being noticed. Which brings me to the gospel today. Like in the gospel, we read the parable of the prodigal son, right? The parable of this father and his two sons. I think sometimes we can see the two sons, the older son and younger son, as like, you know, the good son and the bad son. Or we can see the two sons as being so incredibly different from each other that they basically have nothing to do with each other. But the truth is, both the older son and the younger son are incredibly similar to each other. And I think that the older son and younger son might not only be incredibly similar to each other. I think they might be incredibly similar to us, because. Why? Here's the younger son. What's he want? Well, he did not want to live at home, right? He says, give me the share of the inheritance that should come to me. And then says, after a few days, he took his inheritance, took all the money, took all the property, and he set off to a distant country. He did not want to live at home, and so he left. That's it. He rebelled. But the older son, he also did not want to live at home. He said. What did he say? He says, all these years I've slaved for you, and not once did I ask for a goat to feast on with my friends. See, isn't it interesting? The. The older son, he also did not want to live at home, but he stayed and he resented. Whereas the younger son rebelled, he didn't want to live at home, and he left. The older son resented it. He didn't want to live at home either, but he stayed. And here's the thing that unites them. Neither of them knew how to live at home. Why? Because we hear it in our speech, right? The younger son says, if I come home, I'll live as a slave. And the older son says, if I stay home, I live as a slave. And yet the father said to both of them, you not slaves. The father says to both of them, you're actually my sons. And this is the reality. This can Be us. This can sum up our lives as Christians, which is one of the reasons why here we are in the midst of Lent during this series, right? The series is all about training. The series is that at the end of this Lent, we don't just want to be more self disciplined. We don't just want to get rid of bad habits. We don't want to just be marginally healthier or holier. The goal of this Lent is training so that we can, at the end of this Lent, look more like Jesus than we did at the beginning of this Lent. And so this is like the dojo, right? The place of training. Dojo in English means the place of the way. And so from the very beginning, we've been talking about how the place of the way, the place of training, is entering into silence. And the place of the way is entering in the desert. The place of the way is the crossroads. And last weekend, the place of the way was the valley. For us today, this week, the place of the way is home. And I think the place of the way for some of us is the most intimidating because I think home, sometimes the father's house is the most intimidating place that we possibly could go. Why? Because in order to be able to look like Jesus, I need to know how to live in the presence of the Father. In order to be able to look like Jesus, I need to be able to stand the Father's gaze and know who it is that he's looking at. That's why the place of the way is the father's house. The place of the way is home. To be able to be in that place where I can let myself. We can let ourselves be seen by the father and not hide. We can let ourselves be seen by the father and not avoid him, because that's what the both sons are doing. Both sons are avoiding their father. Again, the younger son, you guys, it's not enough for him to just to say, give me the sheriff through the inheritance. That's one thing. He might want to invest it. Who knows what he wants to do with it? The big killer is he takes the inheritance and then he leaves his family. He leaves his father basically saying, I want nothing to do with you. I want to avoid my dad. The older son, of course, as we noted, he stayed. But can you picture what life might have looked like? What might life have looked like for the older son? Here they are, father and son on the family farm. And you can imagine that here's the Every morning, here's the son, he wakes up in his Bedroom upstairs. And he can hear his father in the kitchen, like getting stuff ready, cooking breakfast, maybe making coffee. And he just waits. Here's the dad is downstairs, has breakfast for the family, has breakfast for his son. But the son's just upstairs just like, no, I'll wait, I'll wait until he leaves. And he can hear, hears the screen door open, screen door slams. And now he comes downstairs and there's half a pot of cooling coffee and half a, you know, plate of some cooling eggs. And then on the table is a list, list of the chores, list of the chores, the tasks that the father was like waiting for him to come down, but he didn't come down, so father had to take off and just left the list. And what happens is all that's left is a list of chores on the table. And this can be us where sometimes we realize our relationship with God has become a checklist. This is just all the things I have to do for him. Why? Because he was avoiding the Father. Again, this is so much our temptation in so many ways to hide, to avoid the father. Because of that, we need to learn how to live in the Father's presence because the place of the way is home and it can be intimidating, but this is absolutely possible. In fact, we only need really two things in order to know how to live in the Father's house. Like Jesus, so he can look like Jesus. We only need two things, very simple. We just need time and we need trust. We need time and we need trust. So growing up, as mentioned, one of six kids, I did not have a lot of one on one time with my parents. Not because they didn't want it. I'm kind of a, kind of a hider, kind of an avoider, right? So I just kind of, I didn't really seize on it. And then at one point after I graduated college, I was a missionary and I remember my parents came down to visit me for a week and it was the longest week of my life. My parents came down and I picked them up at the airport and drove them to where they were going to stay. And I remember being like, wait, there's no one else here. I did not have the other five of my siblings to buffer their attention. And I was. So that week I was just like, oh my gosh, I've never had this, I've never had just this one on one time with my parents. And it was very, very strange. And that changed. That changed. I remember one summer, the first summer I trained for a race, it was an Ironman triathlon with my dad. My dad had done a bunch of these races before. I'd never done one. And so I'm like, dad, we need to go on a bike ride. I need to go on a four hour bike ride. He's like, okay, I know a four hour loop. And so he got on his bike, I got on my bike and we would ride for four hours. And it was one of those summers where I remember at the end of that summer I'm like, oh my gosh, I know my dad because we spent hours almost every day just side by side, one on one, training together. And it was just that matter of having time that I would say if I never had that, I would never have an adult relationship with my own dad. So that's us. That's when it comes to the time we give to the Lord, time we give to the Father. And that can look like time in the chapel, it can look like time in your church, it can look like time in prayer, and that's awesome. But it can also look like time you spend out for a walk. It can also look like time you spend in your car where it's just, okay, Father, you're here and we're going to do this together. Because if I want to grow in being able to stop avoiding the Father, but know how to live in the Father's house, I need to spend time not just in prayer, but also on mission. You know the other example, I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but there's a green shed out my parents backyard. And it's a wooden shed. It is bomb proof. It is the most sturdy shed I've ever seen in my life. And I helped my dad build that shed one summer. Oh, it was painful. It was horrible. And it was not just horrible for me as a child, it was horrible for my dad. I'm guarantee this because my dad could have built this shed. Whenever I see this shed, I think my dad could have built this shed by himself monumentally faster then he built it with all the rest of us kids because that's what he did. He could have done it himself. He wanted to build this shed with us and he did. And it took so much longer. But the point is, when I got to build a shed with my dad, like do a project, do something with my dad, I got to see how he did it. Like I got to see how he worked. I got to know my dad's heart a little bit more and I got to spend time with him making something. I got to Spend time with him, creating something, doing something. And the same thing is true when it comes to the Lord. Not only do we spend time with him in prayer, but also I have to realize that some part of my life should be living his mission, like some part of my life should be. Okay. The reason I'm here is because I'm doing this with dad, like with my Father in heaven. Just got an email recently from one of our former students. Her name is Alyssa, and Alyssa is a full time missionary. And she just got back from Pakistan. And in her email she was describing the way she worked shoulder to shoulder with God the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. She talked about working with in Pakistan. It is not very easy to be a Christian. It's 1.3%, I think, of Pakistan is Christian and there's a lot of oppression. She actually, she and a team of people, they were setting slaves, literally setting slaves free. People who had lived their entire lives or much of their lives in slavery. She and her team were setting people free and then actually praying for miracles in their lives. And she in her email documented these miracles that she said, okay, I prayed in Jesus name for these people. And they had healings from headache, these healings from joint issues, these healings and mobility. Not only that, they also had healings from demonic oppression. Not only that, but they came to the faith in Jesus Christ. Some of these slaves who had never heard of Christ had become Christian. And just reading her email realized. It made me realize, oh, my gosh, here is this ordinary human being, ordinary incredible woman who was willing to work shoulder to shoulder with the Father. And that's the thing is working shoulder to shoulder, side by side with God the Father. She learned how to live at home. Because why? Because in order to look like Jesus and live like Jesus, we have to live where Jesus lived. We have to spend time in the Father's gaze. So we need time. We also need trust. And big question, okay, how do I grow in trust? That's a big question. Like, okay, I know how to spend time with God. Pray, okay, shoulder to shoulder. How do you build trust? Well, I would say this trust involves, almost always involves making yourself vulnerable. And vulnerability almost always involves honesty. Go back to the gospel. Today you have both sons. Both sons, you know, they had a speech that was burning inside them. Both sons had speeches. They had, both of them had this story that had been sitting inside of them for so long. And then when they say it, finally they say they told the father this is what they actually think here. The younger son Says, I've wanted to live my life without you, but now I need you. Like I wanted to live my life without you. But here I am starving. I'll be your slave. That's a story burning within him. I wanted to live my life without you, and I need you. The older son said, I've wanted to live my life without you, but now I'm stuck here with you. These are the two stories that were living inside of these two men. But at least in this moment, they started telling their father the truth. Because trust begins with becoming vulnerable, and vulnerability begins with being honest. You know, for this whole Lent, we've been following a man named Takashi Nagai, right, who lived born in the first part of the last century in Japan. He was a Japanese Catholic. During the. During the dropping of the bomb at Nagasaki last year, we. Last weekend, we talked about just the way in which he responded with so much grace to this destruction and devastation, having lost almost everything in his life. When the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in that first year after the bomb was dropped, he wrote a book called the Bells of Nagasaki. And in it, he expressed honestly, brutally, honesty, honestly, his confusion and his anger and his tears. In that book, he wrote this simple line. He just wrote, why, Lord? Why did you allow this? And that was a repeated question that Tekashi Nagai did not hide from. In fact, when you read what he wrote, you realize that this man, he allowed himself to grieve honestly again. Last week, we noted that he came to the point where he had the place of acceptance and where he saw the power of God's love even in that sacrifice of Nagasaki. But that didn't happen immediately. Immediately he was honest, and immediately and often he wept that he didn't. He didn't settle for an easy answer, but he grieved honestly. And honesty leads to vulnerability, and vulnerability leads to trust. And that's reality, right? That the great pain, the great sorrow that Tekashi knew was exacerbated by the fact that he also knew that he was dying. And he knew that Even though his two children, ages 4, his little daughter age 4, and his son age 10, even though they lived through the bomb, he knew that he would die within two to three years. And his daughter would only be seven when he died, and his son would only be 13 when he died. And so he wrote this letter. He wrote a letter called Leaving my beloved children behind. Because the idea of leaving his children behind broke his heart. But he was honest with this, right? He grieved honestly. Here's what he wrote. He wrote this to his kids. He said, I must be honest with you, my children. You will drink a bitter chalice. As orphans, you will have to struggle against the temptation of resentment toward your school friends who have a mother and a father, and against the subtle temptation of coldly resigning yourselves with a mistaken sense of independence to that dark and dismal unbelief called fatalism. He said, don't live negatively by blind fate, but live meaningfully and lovingly and experience the Father's personal providence. He has asked the three of us to accept a bitter drink. This is our way to peace and to participation in his great plan, the one that Jesus saw when he spoke of the lilies of the field and of the sparrows that are precious in the eyes of the Father. He knew his kids would be tempted towards resentment. His kids would be like older son, tempted towards resentment. He said, but don't remember that you have a father who is in heaven. You have a father who actually loves you. But again he grieved honestly. And even he prayed in that letter. He prayed, why must I suffer? He prayed, why must we partake? I do not understand it, but I trust it. If this is the path that God has chosen, I will walk it. I don't understand, but I trust. You know, this trust grows through honesty. Because to be honest, to tell the truth, is to make yourself vulnerable. You know, one of the. Of course he was concerned for his son, 10 year old, but he was in a unique way concerned for his daughter Kayano. Kayano, she's only four years old and she had this incredible disaffection for her father. She was. So there's this one occasion that he describes where she rushes, you know, he's dying and he's in great pain almost constantly. And she rushes home from school as a little 4 year old, 5 year old, and she rushes up to his bedside and she buries her face in his side and she simply says, ah, the lovely smell of my daddy. And he said he had to turn away from her because his immediate thought was, soon the day is going to come when she rushes home from my funeral and all she'll be able to do is pick up my pillow and smell it, trying to get one last, you know, smell of my daddy. He was more concerned about her because he noticed that even though she was exuberant for life and was able to laugh, she wasn't able to cry. And it caused him this great concern, this great worry. It occupied his prayer in a large way. Because here's this four Year old, five year old, six year old girl who couldn't cry. He wrote about it. He said this. He said our childhood writing to Kayano, hoping that she could read it when she was older. She said, our childhood is happy because we can cry. And just think about that. Our childhood is happy because we can cry. We know that if we cry, our mother will come and comfort us. And at times, since your mother died, Kayano, I wanted to bawl my eyes out. But an adult cannot do that. Only a child who has a mother can. He went on to talk about. He said he worked at an orphanage and he noticed that an orphan who cries is laughed at by the others and learns the art of clamping back tears. And he said, the only one who has the whole answer, that's Jesus. He's the only one who has the whole answer. Yet the only one who has the whole answer said happy are those who weep, for they shall be comforted. Because only those who know that someone's coming, only someone who knows that someone cares, only someone who knows that their tears aren't going to be laughed at is willing to cry. Why? Because to cry is to be vulnerable. It means your heart can still be broken. To cry is to have hope. It means that someone hears. It means that someone cares. And to cry is to be honest. It's to be honest without words. Why? Because if you can still weep, it means you still have a heart. And if you can still weep, it means you still have a hope that you still have a home. I just imagine. I imagine tears in the eyes of the younger son as he's holding that truthful speech in his heart. I didn't want to live without you, but I need you. You can imagine tears in the older son's eyes. I don't want to live without you. And I feel stuck right here. Tears. Tears reveal if you're able to weep, it reveals that you still have a hope, that you still have a home and that someone is waiting for you. That someone is searching for you. Tears reveal that you have this hope, that you have a home and that you belong there. That you have a father and you don't have to hide your heart from him. That you have a father and you don't have to hide how you're actually doing from him. To have tears reveals that you do not have to hide your tears from him. So that's what we need in order to be able to live like Jesus. We need time and trust. Why? Because how did Jesus live? He spent time with his father When Jesus heart was breaking, he wept. He wept at Lazarus tomb, he wept in the garden and he weeps with us. In order to have a place in the Father's house, the place of the way is the home. We have to spend time and we have to grow in trust. And this is the last thing. Imagine what that could look like. Imagine what it could look like for the older son. Like, instead of hearing the father downstairs and waiting to avoid him, imagine what life could look like. God doesn't promise us like an all inclusive resort, like, hey, if you come follow me, then whatever you want is yours. But the father does say, son, you are with me always. Everything I have is yours. So how do we live like that? Imagine this. Imagine morning comes and the younger, older son, whatever, the child goes downstairs into the kitchen where the father is and he doesn't want to avoid him, he spends time with him and they make breakfast together. Dad pours some coffee and they sit there at the table and they say, okay, what do we need to do today here on this farm? What do we need to do today in this kingdom? God, what do you want me to do in my life today? And they plan out their day. And it's not like this list of tasks to do, it's this, okay, me and my dad are going to go and do this mission. Me and my dad are going to go out of this kitchen into the world and I'm going out with him. Imagine what our lives could look like if we stopped avoiding the father's gaze. Imagine what our life could look like if we stopped hiding while we were at home. Imagine what our life would look like if we just spent that time with the father. If we were vulnerable with the father because we were honest and we even showed him our tears. If we did that. It wouldn't just be the desert, it wouldn't just be crossroads and it wouldn't just be the valley, but even our home would be the place of the way.