← Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
07/20/25 The Reason Why
00:15:35
Homily from the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Do it for the love of Jesus. We all have a lot to do. We may even be tempted to resent all that we have to do. But if we do it for the right reason, even the most difficult tasks take on new power and new purpose.
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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 Luke. Glory to you, o Lord. Chapter 10, verses 38 through 42. Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet, listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me. The Lord said to her in reply, martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to have a seat. So a number of years ago I had that, a chance to bring some students to Israel. This is like so many, like 10 or so years ago. And it was, it was a great, it was a great trip, my first trip ever, just getting to bring our college students, young adults, by myself to Israel. Amazing. We went to the upper room. So the upper room is traditionally the place right where Jesus had the Last Supper. It's the place where the apostles gathered together at Pentecost. And it's recreated. It's not the original upper room, but it's the place that people go and it's got this amazing, incredible acoustics. So I've been there a couple times, but this time was unique. Not only was the group of our students there and it was really cool, but there was this choir, this Lutheran choir that was just remarkable. And all of a sudden the a cappella started singing a song and we all knew it. And so quick acting, very fast moving priest. I pulled out my phone and immediately started recording this thing. And every one of our students, including myself, were just blown away by this gorgeous, gorgeous choir singing this beautiful song in this incredible, incredible space. They get done singing, I turn off the recording, we all leave and we're all talking about how amazing it was. I'm like, yeah, I recorded it. And they're like, every One of them is like, oh, man, can you please send. Send me a recording. Send me that recording. So I start sending it out, sending it out, and pretty soon I start getting this. Some of the students going, like, no, no. And then pretty soon, students, I'm like, hey, do you want that recording? Like, no, I heard. Like, what do you mean, you heard? Well, what happened was this. The choir was amazing. The acoustics were great. The song was gorgeous. As I was holding my phone, I was also singing, and I completely, completely ruined the recording. So much so that students are like, please don't send it to me. What I had to offer was not wanted. What I had to offer actually ruined what they were doing. And I think about that too. Like, what I have to offer isn't wanted, or what I have to offer can ruin it. Especially with the gospel today. Here's Martha. You think about this. What did Martha offer? What do we offer? Here's Martha. Martha, she offered what? She welcomed Jesus. She served Jesus. She hosted Jesus. She worked for Jesus. You guys, none of that is bad. What Martha had to offer to Jesus, it's all good. It's not wrong. But here's the problem. The problem is this. The scripture even says this. It says, even though. Here's Martha giving what she had to offer. It says, Martha burdened with much serving. They said that she was burdened. I was asked the question, like, how could she be burdened? She's voluntarily serving Jesus. Like, no one made her do this. No one forced her to do this. She chose to voluntarily serve Jesus also, by the way, she's serving Jesus. What is she doing wrong? You know, I would say this. I would say it's less of what she's doing wrong, more of how she's doing it, or maybe even more like this, why she's doing it. Last spring, at. At Holy Thursday, during Holy Week, our. Our campus, we joined the cathedral down the. Down the road. And on Holy Thursday, the rector of the cathedral, Father Seth, was preaching and his incredible homily. At one point, Father Seth was talking about his time in seminary. And when he's in seminary, we all have to do this thing called cpe, Clinical Pastoral Education. You go to a hospital and you're a chaplain for the summer, basically. So Father Seth's chaplaincy was here in Duluth. As you kind of followed around one of our priests. His name is Father Tom Foster. In the middle of the chaplaincy like this, 10 weeks of working and serving people in the hospital, Father Tom came, turned to Father Seth and said, seth, why are you doing this? Like, what do you mean? Why? Why are you doing this? CPE why are you doing this chaplaincy? Why are you studying to be a priest? And Father Seth said, I don't know. I mean, I think I, I, I, I want to help people. And Father Tom was like, no, wrong answer. Like, okay, I. Because I want to serve the church. Father Tom, nope, try again. He's like, because I, I, I. When people are struggling, I want to be there. Father Tom was like, wrong. No, that's the wrong answer. Which, as Father Seth is telling this story, I'm thinking, like, those are all good answers. Until Father Seth said, well, finally, I was thinking about it, and I said, well, why am I doing this, Father Tom? I'm doing this for love of Jesus. And Father Tom pointed at him and said, yes, that's the answer. You're doing this for love of Jesus. He says, this is all of us. Whatever we're doing, we're serving, we're working, we're busy. Anything, Anything we're doing. You can ask the question, why? And the answer gets to be. The answer has to be, in some ways, for love of Jesus. I was struck by this. Not only by what Father Seth said on Holy Thursday, but also this just resonated with what I've been praying with. I've been praying with the saints. So a couple different saints. St. Francis de Sales had said something like this. He said, a single act done with ardent love is worth more than a thousand. Done with lesser affection. I'm preoccupied with getting things done. And Sam Ratzes the Sales, like, okay, yeah, but if he did it with love, one thing, a small thing, is worth more than a thousand. Saint Teresa of Avila, she said it like this. She said, it's not so much what we do, but the love with which we do it. I think it's remarkable because both St. Francis de Sales and St. Teresa of Avila were incredible reformers in the church. They did so much for the church, so much for Jesus, so much for the Lord, and yet both of them, I love St. Teresa. It's not so much what we do, but the love with which we do it. And they're just echoing scripture, right? St. Paul, letters of the Corinthians. We all know this. We've been to a wedding before where he says, if I speak in human and angelic tongues, which would be awesome to be able to speak in tongues but do not have love. I. I'm a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal, that I have prophecy, have all knowledge. If I Have faith to move mountains. We're like, yeah, if you can have faith to move mountains, you have all prophecy, all knowledge. That'd be amazing. He says, but if I didn't have love, I'm nothing. He says, I could give away everything I have. I give my hand, my body over to be burned. But if I don't have love, I gain nothing. The answer is for love of Jesus. Again, I've thought about that every single day since Holy Thursday. It's been part of my prayer on a regular basis, every day, single throughout the course of the day. Because why? Because I look at myself and someone says, hey, why are you doing what you're doing? I'm like, because I was asked to. Like, we have this campaign to build a church, to try to build a Newman Center. And people say, why do you want to do this? I'm like, well, because I was asked to do it, that's why. Well, why do you do all these things online? Why do you do. Well, because I was asked to do it, that's why. And what happens is what happens to my heart can happen, is what happened to Martha's. I'm. I could say I'm doing what I'm doing well for ministry, because it's part of my ministry. I'm doing what I'm doing because for God. I'm doing what I'm doing for God's people. I'm doing what I'm doing for the church. And the answer is that's no. Father Tom Foster would stop me and say, no, Father Mike, that's not why you're doing this. Not why you should be doing this. Why am I doing this? The answer has to be for love of Jesus. What Father Seth said has changed my heart in so many ways, where literally everything I find myself doing, I stop and say, jesus, this is for love of you. I mentioned a couple months ago that one of our former Focus missionaries, current Catholic priest Father Josh Fons, had texted me. He texted me this word that an older priest had shared with him. And the older priest was in prayer. And Jesus had revealed to this priest's heart that this. This word of conviction where Jesus said to this priest, you used to love me, but now you just work for me. And Father Fan said, I just wanted to pass it on to you in case. In case it applied. And it did at the time, because of what Father Seth had revealed, which is now, Jesus, I'm doing this because I love you. That's it. Everything, Every single thing. I realized that doing the work that Jesus has asked me to do is how I get to love Him. Doing whatever task Jesus has asked me to do, doing that is how I get to love Him. Getting up and going to work and doing hard things, that's how I get to love Jesus. And also resting is how I get to love Jesus. And also putting the work down when it's time to put the work down, that's how I get to love Jesus. Every single one of us, everything that we do, we can be doing it for that one reason. Because I love Jesus. And what that means is that anything we offer can be a way to love Him. Not just our great work and not just our serving, not just our hosting, but even our suffering. You know, St. Paul's letter to the Colossians is the second reading today. Colossians, chapter one. St. Paul says what he says, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my body I'm making up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Jesus for the sake of his body, the church. Pause on that for a second. Here's Paul not saying, like my ministry, I'm offering up for your sake or my great work, I'm offering for your sake or my wins, my successes, my strengths, I'm offering for your sake that might your service. No, he says, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. I know a lot of people who are watching this, praying with us, listening to this right now. You know, you're not in a place of strength right now. You're not in a place of victory right now. You're not in a place where you're like, I feel so strong. I'm offering so much to the Lord. I'm offering so much to the Church. Maybe all you can do right now is offer your pain. Maybe all you can do right now is offer your grief. Maybe all you can do right now is offer your suffering. And so, like St. Paul, you get to say, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. And in my body I'm making up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, which is the church. Now. How do we do that? How do we make up in our suffering what's lacking in the sufferings of Jesus? That's a great question. John Paul ii, years ago, he asked the question. He said, wait, pause. What is lacking in the sufferings of Christ? And the answer, of course, is nothing. Nothing's lacking in the sufferings of Christ. That's what St. Paul mean. John Paul II pointed Out, he said, nothing is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. But so that you and I can have the privilege of participating in the redemption of the world, what Jesus does is Jesus extends to us a particle of his cross so that as often as we embrace that cross, as often as we take up that suffering and unite it to his suffering, unite our little sliver of the cross to his cross, we get to participate in saving the world. What that means is what you do, what I do it, how we serve, how we work, how we rest, how we suffer for the love of Jesus. All of that matters because you have to understand that's like in the gospel. That's the question. I would say this in the gospel today. That's the issue, like what the big problem is this what the big problem is. Not that Martha was busy, it's not that Martha was serving, not that Martha was hosting. The heart of Martha's issue, not just even that she was burdened. The heart of Martha's question isn't that hosting is hard or serving is hard. It's in our first words to Jesus where she comes up to Jesus and she says, lord, do you not care? Lord, do you not care? Here's all I'm doing. Here's me doing all this stuff and I just want to know if you care or not. I think that can be all of us, that can be our question too, Lord, I'm doing this stuff, I'm working hard or I'm suffering a lot. And I just want to know if you care. The answer. The answer is yes. The answer, of course, is that it all matters. The answer is it matters because he loves you and you matter. Even your suffering and even in your. And my weak attempts to offer something, this is the last thing. Sometimes I go back to the upper room in my mind that moment, one of those cringe moments. And I think about my contribution. I can think about what I offered to this incredible, gorgeous choir. And I remember that I ruined the recording. But the truth also is that I didn't ruin the moment. Yeah, the recording is. I should play it for you sometime. It's horrible. I ruined the recording, but I didn't ruin the moment. In that moment, I offered my little like off key voice to the sound of an amazing choir. And in that moment, God was praised. It wouldn't have been a good solo, I'll tell you that right now would have been a bad solo, but that wasn't the call of the moment. In that moment I wanted to join my small gift to this incredible gift in that moment, I wanted to join my actual poor voice to. To voices of this choir. That was one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. To join what I could offer to something that was more beautiful than anything I could offer. And this is what we do for our work too. This is what we do with our sufferings. We unite our work, our small work, to the great saving work of Jesus. Unite our sufferings, our small sufferings, to the powerful and redemptive sufferings of Jesus. We take whatever we can and unite it to him. And it does something, especially when we do it for love of Jesus.