A (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, oh Lord. Chapter 17, verses 11 through 19 as Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, 10 lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, jesus, master, have pity on us. And when he saw them, he said, go show yourselves to the priests. As they were going, they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice. And he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, 10 were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other 9? Has none. But this foreigner returned to give thanks to God. Then he said to him, stand up and go. Your faith has saved you. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. I should have a seat. So shortly after, I had a conversion in high school, and I think one of the first kind of miracles, miraculous events happened in my life. I was a sophomore in high school, and my my brother and I, my older brother and I were able to go on a vacation with another family that had never happened before. Just, you know, we stayed with our family. But his best friend had a younger sibling my age. They were their same age, the two of them. And then their parents, they took us to Mexico, which is super cool. It was so generous of them to take us on this trip. And at one point they rented two cars. The parents did. They rented a small car for the two of them and a small car for the four of us. I think they wanted to save their sanity. And so, you know, halfway through the vacation, which was super. Again, it was so cool. It was so generous of this family. We were gonna go on a little adventure, the four of us, and we got to this, like, dive shop and we're gonna go scuba diving. And we got there and it was closed for a siesta. So we're like, okay, well, it opens in an hour. Let's just explore and so we did is we just basically ran up and down the beach for like a mile and we were like running in and out of the water, like diving. We're all four of us were on the swim team and so we'd all, you know, just do that. And took us an hour mile down, mile back in and out of the ocean. We get back to the surf shop, the scuba shop, and my brother's best friend couldn't find the key to the rental car. And he was freaking out because he was like, my dad is going to kill me. Like literally my parents are going to lose it. Like I lost the key to the rental car. And I remember I had been over at their house a couple times and I'm like, yep, I think you're right. I've seen your dad get mad at you. And you're right, if you're not going to get killed, you're going to get maimed. And it was this, we had this desperation of like, let's look for the key. But how can you look for the key in a mile long stretch of being running in and out of the water? So I just prayed, I was praying to St. Anthony obviously, right? We do that kind of thing. And I was just, okay, St. Anthony, I was just walking. I'm like, this is hopeless. I should have been St. Jude. This is hopeless. There's no way we possibly could find this key. But St. Anthony, please help us find this key. I don't want my brother's best friend to die on this. It would ruin the vacation. And I remember I said in my prayer, I did some bargaining, sometimes we do that, right? I said, St. Anthony, if you help me find this key, I will tell everybody I know about you helping me find this key. And honestly, I stopped where I was standing. I was praying, I stopped, looked down between my feet in the sand and I couldn't even see, just looking, like something was dark underneath the surface of the sand. And I reached, literally reached into the sand and pulled out the key. Like in this mile long stretch of beach, in and out of the water, found the key. I was like, oh my gosh, you guys, we found this Saint Anthony. We go to the scuba shop, dive shop, and I told the lady working the desk, St. Anthony helped us out because that was the thing, like, I was like, this is the first time I think I'd ever experienced what I would say is this miraculous, divine intervention in my life. And you'd think like, man, that changed my life. But here's the thing, this is so Remarkable. What I lived then was the same cycle that so many people live that we see in the Gospel today twice. And the cycle is this. We're in some kind of crisis. So we cry out to God in desperation. We are desperate. We have desperate prayer. We're in desperate need. We cry out to God, he answers, and we're grateful, so grateful. And then we forget that it happened. Like this is probably every one of us at some degree where we're in desperate need. We're cry out to God, he answers us, we're grateful, so thankful to the Lord from our heart. And then we forget. And you might think like, are you kidding me? If God did a miracle in my life, I would never forget that. And you might be right. You also might be wrong. Because why? Because this is how we're built. Like we're leaky, right? We forget things so easily. And it's kind of like you've heard, you heard the joke about the person who's driving in their car in the parking lot and they need to find a parking spot. And so they're praying, God, please help me find a parking spot in the. Do the bargaining like I did on the beach. God, if you help me find a parking spot, I promise I will go to church on Sundays, I'll stop drinking, I'll be a good person. And then they see an open spot and they're like, oh, nevermind, God, I got one. You know, I found it myself. We sometimes do this, right? We sometimes so easily just take away from God what was God's. Or even if we don't forget it, here's how we remember it. We remember it as if, oh, that's just, that's some cool thing that once happened to me. Again, go back to this. Here's the cycle. I'm in desperate need. I cry out to God, God answers, I'm thankful. And if I don't forget, just becomes this really cool thing that once happened to me and now become what happens to all of us. We become numb to the astounding. Here's a question. Could you witness a miracle and then go back to your life as if nothing happened? And I think we all could. I think we could bear witness to something astounding and then go back to our lives as if nothing happened. Because why? Because it just becomes a thing that happened. As normal as having legs that work, which is kind of a miracle. As normal as having eyes that work, which is amazing. As normal as having seeing a sunrise, as normal as indoor plumbing. All of those things are astounding and yet they're just things we take for granted because that's our cycle, that's our tendency. This is the first reading. It's not the first reading. Actually. In the first reading, something unique happens that puts a stop to this cycle. So the first reading, here's Naaman. Naaman's a Syrian. You don't know this necessarily, but Naaman was a great general in the Syrian army. And he has leprosy, which you probably know this. If you had leprosy in the ancient world, it was a death sentence. Like you are guaranteed to die from leprosy if you don't die from something. Before that, it was a death sentence. And so Naaman has a child slave who said, who's Jewish. He captured her in a raid at one point, and she says, actually, there's a holy man in Israel who could actually heal you of your leprosy. And so Naaman travels all the way down to Israel and here's Elisha. Elisha says, well, bathe yourself in the Jordan river seven times after whole long rigmarole, Naaman does it. He has completely healed. So here's the story, right? He's in desperate need. He cries out to God, right? Goes to the man of God, Elisha. God answers and he is so thankful. I don't know if you caught in the reading today. He's like. He says, I will give you riches, I'll give you all these gifts. I'll give you as many things as possible. Elisha says, nah, don't worry about it. You don't need to give me anything. God's the one who healed you. Here is where Naaman stops the cycle. Because Naaman says this, okay, I'm going to go back home. But he says, let me have at least two mule loads worth of earth. And I want to highlight this. He stops the cycle by saying, okay, let me have two mule loads worth of earth so that when I go back home, I'm taking land from where your God? Where the God who healed me. That's where he is now. Here's what Naaman didn't know. Naaman didn't know that God is the God of the whole universe. Here's what he did know. He knew this. He did not want to go back home and stay the same, that he was taking this mule load of earth. Why? Because when he got back home, he was going to spread it out. And every time he stood on that earth, he is standing on the land of the God who saved his life. For the rest of Naaman's life with those two mule loads of earth. He goes back home and he makes a choice to build his life on what God had done for him. He made a choice to build his life on the God who saved his life. And that's what breaks the cycle. So, you know, in the gospel Today, here's these 10 lepers. They're all healed. One comes back and thanks the Lord again. That's good. But I'm going to say this. If that 10th leper doesn't have his own 2 mule loads of earth, he is in danger of doing exactly what we all do. Either forgetting or saying, oh, yeah, that really cool thing that happened to me once. Because here's what we have to do. We have to realize what Jesus has done for us is what he's done for those lepers. Right? Those lepers, those 10 men, they're as good as dead, Naaman. As good as dead. And us in our sin, as good as dead. That's actually biblically an analogy. Leprosy is a biblical analogy for sin. Why? Because leprosy is fatal. So is sin. Leprosy is contagious and so is sin. And God's grace steps in and saves us. And what happens? Cycle. I'm in desperate need. I cry out to God, please, Jesus, save me from my sin. He does it because he's so good. I'm thankful. And then what? Then what do I do? Unless I'm willing to do two things, unless I'm willing to build my life on this, unless I'm willing to take my two mule loads worth of earth and say, I'm going to build my life on the Jesus who saved my life. And then also unless I'm willing to talk about it, it and say it, I'll simply forget it. I remember listening or reading a quote from Pope Benedict XVI years ago. It's one of those quotes that just sticks with you so much, so many times that, or so deeply that you say it all the time. And so Pope Benedict, the beginning of one of his first encyclical, God is Love, he says this. He says in the first page, he says being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty ideal. What that means is he says being a Christian is not the result of, hey, this seems like the right way to believe. Not an ethical choice or a lofty ideal. This seems like a good way to live. He says, while I believe, we believe Pope Benedict believed that Christianity is an ethical, good, ethical choice and a lofty ideal. Because being a Christian is not the result of that. Said, being a Christian is the result of an event. He said it's the result of an encounter with a person that gives one's life a new horizon and sets it in a decisive direction. Being a Christian is a result of an encounter, a moment. That moment could be a process. Doesn't have to be a single moment. It can be a process, but it's one that I met Jesus. And however it did, however it happened, whether it was a miracle or not a miracle or just an encounter, that was a beautiful moment where I just knew that here is God and He is real and he is present and he is Jesus. That encounter gives one's life a new horizon and sets it in a decisive direction. I've talked to so many people who have had that encounter in adoration. They were at camp, they were at a retreat, they were somewhere and they went into God's presence, Jesus presence in the Eucharist. And I know that's you, God. I know that's you, Jesus, or like me. My first encounter with Jesus in that way that changed my life and sets it in a decisive direction was in confession when I was 15 years old, going to the priest's house and just experiencing what God's forgiveness could do in my life. I left that house, stepped off his porch. And I can trace virtually every good choice in my life back to that moment. Cause that moment set my life in a decisive direction. So adoration could be confession. Some people experienced Christ for the first time in community and it gives their life a new horizon, a decisive direction. I mentioned, I find so many people have this experience. They go away for a retreat, they go to a camp, they go to a conference, and they encountered Jesus in a real way. And then what happens? Well, you have this retreat high, then you come back home to the real world and what happens? It just fades away again, you guys, this is the cycle. And we sometimes think, oh no, that's just what happens. It's not what has to happen, it's what happens. Because we live on the cycle of we realize we're in desperate need. We cry out to God, he answers us because he loves us, we're thankful. And then we go back home and we didn't bring our two meal loads worth of earth. We go back home to our ordinary life that we left before. And there's no room for Jesus in that life. Our gratitude falters and our memory fades because what Jesus had done is meant to be used. I mean, the encounter is great, the encounter is necessary. But the encounter was meant to be the beginning of a relationship. I mean, think about if you're someone who's married or engaged to be married. Think about, you probably remember your first date. Maybe you remember the first time. You're like, oh, wow, I'm in love with this person. That's amazing. That's the encounter. But you don't rely on that date. You don't rely on that moment to love them. Now, that encounter was what sparked the fact that you now have a relationship with them. God wants the same thing. For us, that encounter is meant to spark our decision to take our two mule loads worth of earth and say, I'm going to build my life. I'm the God who saved my life. I'm going to live out the relationship. Unless we do that, it'll fade. So how do we do that? I think a couple ways. I think one of the ways we do as Catholics, we have little reminders. We have these things that we hold onto. I don't know if you remember the TV show Cheers. In the TV show Cheers, there was a main character, Sam Malone. And Sam Malone owned, owned and ran a bar. He was a former professional baseball player, but his career tanked because he was an alcoholic, which doesn't make any sense that he is then owning and running a bar. But that's part of the story. At one point, I remember, maybe the one episode of Cheers that I remember is the day that Sam lost a bottle cap. And the reason why it was so significant to him is he said that was the first night he didn't drink. He knew his life had hit rock bottom and all he had was this bottle cap from a beer bottle. And he described that night, he said, that whole night I just. I squeezed. I knew I couldn't drink. I would kill myself if I did. So I just squeezed that bottle cap. And he said there was nights where I just. Because it wasn't just that one night. Every night he wanted to drink, he would squeeze the bottle cap and it would form an impression in his hands. The point of this episode was that he lost the bottle cap. And a significant moment happened where either he or one of his friends opened a beer bottle, poured the beer out, handed him the new bottle cap and said, here, here you go. It was that thing that reminded him not just of that first night of sobriety, it reminded him of the fact that he wanted to be a man who was free. And we have these. We have these too, right? We have. Imagine every time if you wear a crucifix, if you wear a cross. Every time you put that cross on, you're not just remembering. I remember what Jesus did for me 2000 years ago. I remember when I first became a Christian. You're putting that cross over your neck or putting it on the wall. You're holding it in your hand and you're saying, this is what Jesus has done for me now. Like, this is our relationship, one of love. You know, I have this ring, and I got this ring in Israel. And written on the ring are the words, you are a priest forever. Which I actually had checked by an Israeli person who's read Hebrew. I didn't want it to say made in Taiwan. It actually, he says. What it literally says is, you are an everlasting priest. And that's from Psalm 110. When I wear this ring, it's not like, oh, yeah, December, June 6, 2003. That's what I. That's what I think of. I don't. I don't. When I put this ring on every morning, I don't think of June 6, 2003, the day I got ordained. I think today, today I want to live this relationship out. See, that's why we have these things. The encounter is important, but we need to have our two mule loads, one worth of earth. What is that thing you can hold onto? What's the thing you can look to? So that first thing, a reminder, Second thing is a sacred place. What is that sacred place? Like the two mule loads worth of earth. Naaman goes back and says, I will. Whenever I pray on this, I am praying God's presence because I'm standing on the rock of the God who saved my life. I would tell you this. My sacred place is literally right there. Because virtually every day, that's where I get to park myself in front of Jesus. And this is that sacred place. You might have a chapel. That's a sacred place for you. You might have a church. You might have a chair. That's your sacred place. And that's the place where you're like, okay, this is where. This is one of those critical places where I live out that relationship with Jesus. We have our reminders. We have our sacred places. We also have our sacred times. This is so important. Having the sacred time is that sense of saying, okay, I not only have a sacred place, but there is a time I get there. If I just kind of pray any old time. I won't pray at any time. I believe it's the catechism that said something along the lines of, it's impossible to pray always, unless we pray at specific times. So for you, if you want to have your two mule loads worth of earth and not ever forget what God has done, but live out that encounter and a real relationship, not only where is your sacred place, but what is your sacred time? What's that time that says, if I can, that's the time I pray. So we have to use it, we have to build our lives on it. But we also have to do one other thing. We have to say it. We have to tell people the story. When I say say it, I mean two things. One is, I mean we have to thank God for it, right? So if God has done something in my life, I need to thank him, I think so. Oftentimes I talk to people who say, well, I just don't know how to pray. I would say, well, it's really simple. Make God thank you a regular part of your prayer. What I mean by that is it's three parts. Just very, very simply. First, notice what's good in your life. Secondly, track down the source of what's good. Like where does that good come from? It could come from a friendship, it could come from a relationship, husband and wife. It could come from your kids, it could come from nature. It could come from the world around you. It could come from whatever. Find what's good, notice what's good, track down the source. I'll tell you this little spoiler. The ultimate source is God himself. Then say thank you. Look for what's good. Track down the source, it's God, and say thank you. And then lastly, tell people. I remember a couple years ago, I had met a bishop who. A retired bishop. And the story about him and his life. He had retired and moved to like a little apartment building. And at one point he was hosting some friends over at his apartment. And he left the dining room and went to like a kind of a library room, a den area, study area. And he brought out a picture book, a picture book about the miracle of Fatima. I don't know if you know anything about the miracle of Fatima, but in that picture book there was a photo of his grandparents. His grandparents were actually in a black and white photo. I think they were 17 and 18 years old. In this photo. They were actually at. So what Fatima is 1917. The little Portuguese town of Fatima. Our lady appears to these three children. And she appears a number of times. But a very critical Moment happened on October 13, 1917, where Mary announced that she would be. On October 13, she'd be in this particular field. But people who came out there, they would see an unmistakable sign of God's presence. And so upwards, maybe even of a hundred thousand people showed up. And these were some believers, some skeptics, some doubters, some atheists, some newspaper reporters. People just wanted to witness the event or witness it not happening. And they showed up in a torrential downpour. It was raining so hard that people talked about how their clothes, as they stood in this field, their clothes were soaked to the bone. And they found themselves standing in this field, sinking up to their ankles in the mud. And then something happened. People describe it as if, they say the sun danced, that it began spinning, began casting colors around the crowd, zigzagging all over the earth as if the world were about to end. People are screaming, people are freaking out. But they all saw this thing until the sun went back to its spot and the sign, the miracle was over. And people noticed. They looked at their clothes. The clothes that had been previously soaked to the skin were completely dry. The earth that had been completely mud was now absolutely dry. And even those skeptics who showed up, those atheists who showed up, those newspaper people who showed up to debunk the whole thing said, no, this is real. And here's this bishop who was like, and here's a picture of my grandma and grandpa at 17 and 18 years old who were there. And I remember asking the question, I said, well, did they ever, did they ever talk about it? Like, did your grandparents ever tell you the story? And this bishop said, my grandparents never stopped talking about it. He said, they always talked about it. And that's the difference. See, we're on this cycle because God's doing amazing things every day and we need him every day. So we have this. We are in this place of great desperation. We cry out to God, he answers, somehow sometimes when we're miraculously, sometimes in a way we could never imagine. And we're grateful because you're a good person, you have a good heart, you're grateful. But if we're going to actually not lose this, this great gift, we have to use it. That means we have to look at God and say thank you. We have to tell people about what he's done. Can you imagine telling about the great thing that Jesus has done for you? And above all, we have to find our two mule loads worth of earth. I say, this isn't just a thing that happened to me in one day. This isn't just a cool thing, cool story in my life, but this was an encounter with Jesus Christ. And it changed my life. And now I am building my life on these two mule loads worth of earth of the God who saved my life.