Fr. Mike Schmitz (0:02)

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 12 verses 3248 Jesus said to his disciples, do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your belongings and give alms. Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out and inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach or moth can destroy. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be gird your loins, and light your lamps, and be like servants who await their master's return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the Master finds vigilant upon his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them and should he come in the second or third watch, and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants be sure of if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect the Son of Man will come. Then Peter said, lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone? And the Lord replied, who then is the faithful and prudent steward whom the Master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so. Truly, I say to you, the Master will put that servant in charge of all his property. But if that servant says to himself, my master is delayed in coming, and begins to beat the manservants and the maidservants, and eat and drink and get drunk, then that servant's master will come on an unexpected day, and at an unknown hour, and will punish the servant severely, he will assign him a place with the unfaithful. The servant who knew his master's will, but did not make preparations, nor act in accord with his will, shall be beaten severely and the servant who was ignorant of his Master's will, but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating, shall be beaten only lightly. Much will be required of the person entrusted with much. And still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Invite you to have a seat. So back in 1922, a girl was born in Italy. Her name was Gianna. Gianna Beretta is her name. And she grew up in a Catholic family. And at some point in her young life, she embraced her faith and she embraced following after Jesus. She became a physician. In fact, she went to medical school and became a pediatrician. She met a man named Pietro Mola, and they fell in love, and they got married and they had three children. It was one of the situations where Gianna and Pietro, they often talked about and even wrote about how they both saw their love, their marriage and their family, their children, as the way that God wanted them to make. Wanted to make them saints. That even just, we're physicians, you know, here I'm living this life. But the way that God is going to make us saints is how well we love each other and how well we love our kids. At one point, though, they got pregnant with their fourth child. And as Gianna was pregnant, they found a tumor on her uterus. And physicians recommended, they said, if they could do a hysterectomy, they removed the uterus, then Gianna's life would be saved, but her daughter would die. And so Gianna elected to say, okay, do the surgery that removes the tumor, that keeps the uterus intact, and the child could hopefully live. They did that surgery. The child did live. She gave birth to her fourth child, a daughter named Gianna, also named Gianna. But there were complications with that surgery and with that delivery. And within a week, Jenna Barratta Mola had passed away. She had died. And she had said in the whole process, she said, if you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate, choose the child. And she did this with a. Because she had faith. She did this because she had a great faith in, like, no, this is what God wants. In fact, that was what she kept coming back to. She says, whatever God wants. Whatever God. That was kind of her mantra was, whatever God wants. And I just have this question. The question is this. Having never been in a situation like that, and maybe you have never been in a situation like that, the question comes up is, do I have the same kind of faith as now, St. Gianna, she was canonized in 2004. Do I have that Kind of faith. I think it's one of the questions that comes back to us a lot. Especially we're hearing the gospel today or the readings today about, here's Abraham, who's the father of faith? You're in the book of wisdom. It talks about. No, you based your faith on the promises of God. So the question is, do I have faith? And I think sometimes we say, I don't know if I have faith because I don't feel it. And this is really important for us because we recognize that faith is not a feeling. This is so important. We actually have to address this because we say, like, well, I don't feel God, so does that mean I don't have any faith? I would say this if God only exists when we feel him. God isn't God. God's just my mood. We recognize that God is more than just a mood. God is more than just our feelings. God is vastly more than just our emotions. Again, emotions are good. We're not robots. We're human beings who have emotions. But we recognize that our emotions aren't our compass. Right? Our emotions are not foundation. Emotions are like the weather. And faith is like the foundation. You can't build a life on the weather. You can build a life on the foundation of faith. Because real faith is choosing God. Not because we feel good, but because we know this, he is good. So how do I know I have faith? Well, I would look at actually the second reading today, Letter to the Hebrews. What happens in the second reading is the author of the Hebrews talks about how Abraham is the father of faith. Why is Abraham the father of faith? Not because he felt it a lot. Not because he really had strong convictions. He says, Abraham is the father of our faith because when God spoke to him, he acted. That when God called him, he moved. This is it. Abraham is known as the father of faith. Not because he had great convictions, not because he felt it, but because when God asked him to, he acted. When God commanded him, he was willing to move. In fact, it even says this. It says, not knowing where he wants to go. We have a bishop, Daniel Felton, as our bishop. And I love him so much, but he says this all the time. He says, you know, the Holy Spirit will only give us enough light for the next step. He doesn't tell us that we don't know the whole journey. We don't know the whole direction, we don't know the whole destination. He says, we only have enough light for the next step, and we won't know the second step. I until we've taken the first step. That's why the letter to the Hebrews says Abraham was called not knowing where he was to go. And that's the pattern of his whole life. He was called from this place. His homeland was called Ur of the Chaldeans. And he was called to a distant land that he did not know where God was going to ask him to stop. And even we heard the story of Abraham and Isaac today in letter to the Hebrews. If you know that story, you know that God said, Abraham, take your only beloved son Isaac, whom you love, and go to a mountain that I will show you. Even in that story, Abraham doesn't know where he's going. He just knows that God has asked him to move and so he moves. And this is the story of every person of faith you've ever met and I've ever met. In the, in the book of Exodus, as God is leading the people of Israel through the wilderness, what happens? Well, he's guiding them by that pillar of fire at night and the pillar of cloud by day. And it would say this, it would say the cloud would arise up and would move. And that's when they saw it rise up, they would follow it. When it stopped, they would stop. They didn't know when it was going to stop. They didn't know where it was going to go. They just knew that they were called to act. They knew they were called to stop. And this is the key when it comes to holiness, when it comes to faith is faith is nothing more than obedience. It's not a feeling, it's not a mood, it's not emotions. It's not, it's not even just having a strong and firm conviction of, okay, this is what I believe. I would say this without obedience. We actually don't have faith. What does Jesus say in the gospel today? Jesus says that there's these people who have been entrusted, the servants, right, entrusted with their master's stuff. And those who know exactly what their master wants but don't do it will be assigned a place with the evildoers. They'll be kicked out of the household because why? Because faith is obedience. And if I want to know if I have faith, do I have the faith of St. Johnny Mola? Am I doing what I know? In fact, there's another saint. Her name is St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. I love one of her quotes. She's the first American born saint and she also is the founder of Catholic schools in the United States. And Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton said this, the secret of Holiness secret of faith essentially is this faith. First, do God's will. Second, do it as he wills, in the manner that he wills. And thirdly, do his will because he wills it. That's it. Do God's will as he wills, because he wills it. And I was thinking about this because earlier I think it was last, last semester, in the spring semester, I came across this quote by a man named George MacDonald, who I think was a Presbyterian, a Scottish, Scottish pastor. And he had said this. He had said so clearly. He said, faith is nothing less and nothing more. Nothing other than obedience. In fact, the longer quote that he has was this. He says, I can find no words strong enough to serve for the weight of this necessity, this obedience. He said, the terrible heresy of the Church. I made this quote a couple months ago, but I'll say it again because it's so important. The terrible heresy of the church is that it's always presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ. He made the statement. He said, it's better to be an atheist who does the will of God than a so called Christian who does not. How do I know if I have faith? He says this. Do you want to live by faith? Do you want to know Christ aright? Do you want to awake and arise and live but don't know how? I'll tell you, here's how you do it. Do you want to know if you have faith? Do you want to know if you're living by faith? He says this. Get up and do something, the Master tells you. That's it. Get up and do something, the Master tells you. He says this. He says, the moment you do, you instantly make yourself a disciple. Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one single thing because he said to do it or have not done something because he said don't do it. How do I know if I have faith like St. Johnna? Is there one single thing that I've done today because Jesus, simply because Jesus said do it. There's one single thing I've not done today simply because Jesus said, don't do it. Why? Because faith is something that moves. Why? Because God wills it. Saint Elizabeth and Seton to do God's will as he wills it, simply because he wills it. And think about this. The moment you move again, like George MacDonald said, the moment you move, you're making a powerful declaration. This declaration is that this makes a difference. I think about this so often when it comes to, you know, wanting to improve life. How many of us Say I'm going to eat a certain way or I'm going to exercise a certain way, or I'm at the age right now where I'm taking, like, more vitamins and, like, supplements than I've ever had in my entire life. Apparently, I need all these things I've never taken before. But it's one of those situations where I came from the Popeye school of vitamins and minerals, where here's Popeye, right? As a kid watching the cartoon Pop, I eat spinach and immediately becomes, like, the most strong person in the world, right? So that was the vision I have, is that you take vitamins, take minerals, take spinach, and immediately you should feel strong. And then you try it and you realize that's not true. That's not how it works. What happens is I'm taking these vitamins, I'm taking these supplements, I'm taking these even medication, and I don't immediately feel anything, but I keep doing it. Why? For one reason. Because I believe that it makes a difference. If you're someone who does this, you're someone who eats right or tries to exercise or tries to get to sleep or tries to take your vitamins. But whatever the things are, you're doing them. The only reason you can do them is because you believe at the heart of everything is, if I keep doing this, it's going to make a difference. Realize that's the exact same thing that happens when we act in faith. I'm going to pray. Why? Because I believe. I'm making a declaration that this makes a difference. I mean, think about the three things we do every Lent and we should do every day. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving. At some level, whenever we do any of those three things, prayer or fast or give alms, what we're declaring with our actions is, I believe, right? Faith. I believe that this actually matters. I believe that this actually makes a difference. And every time you do that, think about this. Every time you take even a moment to pray, you have faith. Every time you take a moment and say, I'm just going to give up this thing out of love for God, that's faith. Every time you say, I'm going to do this because Jesus asked me to do this, that is faith. Then the question comes back and says, well, do I have enough faith? I want to have more. I think this. I think we have to understand that faith is not necessarily a commodity. It's not a commodity. It's not necessarily a thing we hold on to. It's not, I can have my Faith tank is really, really high. I would say this faith is more like this faith is more like my disposition to God or my. Even this, My response to the world in which God has placed me. My faith is our faith is our response to the world around me and the world within me. It's the response of that simply says yes to God. So if I have faith again, it's a disposition. It is this. God's asking me to worship, okay? My disposition is yes. God is asking me to turn away from sin, okay? My response is yes. God's asking me to turn towards him. My response is yes, God's asking me and what this God's asking me to enter into rest. Today is Sunday, and you realize that God has commanded us to enter into rest on this day. So my disposition, if I have faith, my disposition is, okay, God, yes. Now, I realize you probably have a bunch of stuff to do today, but the moment you take a break, the moment you rest today, you're acting in faith. The moment you take a break today, the moment you put your work down today on this Sunday, your disposition is yes. God is calling us to enter into enjoyment of things. Your disposition is yes. And sometimes, yes, God even asks us to enter into difficulty. And again, in those difficult moments, God invites us not to ignore injustice or evil, but to acknowledge that this is where he has me. And maybe to fight and win and maybe to fight and lose, but in all things, to say yes, because that's the secret of faith, the secret of holiness. To do God's will as he wills it because he wills it simply because he's asked me to do this. And that's really hard. But here's the middle one is, I think, the hardest one for me, right? To do God's will as he wills it because he wills it. To do God's will as he wills it is rough. I struggle with all of them, but I struggle with that one maybe the most. Because I think about this as a kid, maybe this is your case. Maybe in life you have to do something and you don't get a say. You're powerless. You have to do what your parents have asked you to do. You have to show up. You basically have to be there. And so in my life, I kind of adopted this. It's not a good thing, but it's kind of how I. How I dealt with it is okay. I was like, okay, I'll be present, but I won't be pleasant. That, that sense of, like, you know, you show up like, oh, I'll show Up. But I'm not going to be happy about it. I think sometimes when it comes to God's will, that's us. Fine, do God's will. But I'm not going to be. I'm not going to. I'm not going to. I'm not going to do it as he wills it. I'm going to do it grudgingly. I'm going to do it with a small heart. I'm going to do this with resentment. I'll be present, but I won't be pleasant. And how often does what could have been something remarkable, an incredible act of faith. Yes, this is God's will. I'm doing it because he wills it, but I'm not doing it as he wills it. I would say as he wills it is simply this. To be fully engaged, like to be, again, be present and pleasant. But more than that, to be fully engaged in the moment because you don't have to be singing hop, skipping around to be doing God's will as he wills it. Think about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He wasn't singing a song. He wasn't whistling a tune. He was sweating blood. Think about Jesus in front of Lazarus Tomb. Again, he wasn't happy. He allowed himself to. To be crushed. What does that mean? That means he was fully engaged in this moment. To do God's will as he wills it simply means to be fully engaged. Our disposition, right, the disposition is God is here and God wants me here. That's what it is to do God's will as he wills it, to acknowledge, okay, God is here. God wants me to be here. And if I do this, I believe this matters. I believe that this does something. So this is the last thing. Here's that question. How do you and I know if we have faith? How do you and I know if we have faith like St. Gianna or faith like St. Elizabeth and Seton, or faith like any of the great saints? Well, the first question we get to ask is, am I doing God's will? What I know he wants me to do, am I doing it? Is there one single thing today that I'm doing simply because he's asked me to do it? And then am I doing it as he wills me? Am I doing it as he's asked me to do it? That is the secret. And the secret is nothing more than to do God's will as he wills it and because he wills it. Another way you could say it is what St. Gianna Mola said through a whole life, but especially during that last pregnancy, she would just say, whatever God wants. Whatever God wants. How do you and I walk in faith Is to encounter every situation, every circumstance, every season, every moment of life. To do God's will as he wills it, because he wills it. And to say, like St. Gianna Mola, whatever God wants.