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 Matthew Glory to you, o Lord. Chapter 5, verses 1 through 12 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are you who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to have a seat. So after this, after this, something will be different. After this, something will have changed. After this Mass, there is something that will never go back. By the end of this Mass, there is something that will never be the same. Right after this, even thinking about that, after this, after this life, you know, when it comes to the afterlife, when it comes to life after death, there are so many questions. And one of the questions people ask, you know, kids ask this all the time. But some adults ask this, they ask the question, will my pet be in heaven? Which is a good question. I mean, you love your pet. You want to know if your pet will be in heaven. And I think smart people, wise people, good people will say something along the lines of, well, if you need your, if you need your pet to be happy in heaven, then you'll have your pet in heaven. Which is a great answer. This is such a good answer. It's a good answer because the person offering the answer knows the truth. The truth is, you won't need your Pet to be happy in heaven. Here's the reality, though. But someone says, well, yeah, but, like, will there be golf in heaven? Will my spouse be in heaven? Will my family be in heaven? Will my friends be in. Who else will be in heaven? If you need them to be happy in heaven? If you need golf to be happy in heaven, then basically, if you need anything other than God to be happy in heaven, then that will be in heaven. Again, great answer. Why? Because if you need your pet to be happy in heaven, your heart's not ready for heaven. If you need golf to be in heaven, then your heart is not ready for heaven. The reality, the truth, is that if we need anything other than God to be happy in heaven, then we just know the truth. Then we're not ready for heaven. And if that's the case, then what happens? That means something has to happen to my love. It means, again, if I need something else other than God to be happy in heaven, that means something has to happen to my heart. Something has to change. You know, St. John of the Cross is a famous quote. St. John of the Cross once said, in the twilight of our lives, like at the end of our lives, we will be judged on love alone, which is a great. A great, great teaching, great thought, great truth, and the twilight of our lives. The end of our lives will be judged on love alone. Why? Because Jesus himself said this, right? The great commandments, the two great commandments. To love God with everything you have, with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. To love God with everything you are, and to love your neighbor as yourself. If I'm not. If I don't currently love God with everything I have, if I don't currently love God with everything I am, then something in me has to change. Then something in me has to be different. What it means is my heart has to be purified, you know? So today is All Souls Day, right? And. But today we do what? We pray for all of those who have died in friendship with God, but whose hearts still need to be changed. That's what purgatory is. Purgatory is that place, that process for all those who die in friendship with God, but whose hearts aren't fully prepared to enter into heaven. You know, here's the crazy thing about this is you bring up purgatory, people are like, do you still believe in purgatory? Catholics, Christians believe in purgatory. You know what? Purgatory was a universally held belief since the beginning of Christianity. For all of Christianity, purgatory, the reality that when I die in Friendship with God. If my heart isn't ready for him, if I don't love him more than anything, if I don't love him the way he should be loved, then something has to happen in my heart. Purgatory was believed by Christians, all Christians, in fact, for 1500 years. Why? The reality is because of this. Because we all, all Christians believe that sin has consequences. That's the reality. We all believe sin has consequences. Now what some Christians have forgotten, or maybe they were never told this, that there are two kinds of consequences to sin. There's the eternal consequence to sin. And the eternal consequence of sin is what? Hell, right? Obviously the eternal consequence of sin is hell. Jesus in his life, death and resurrection, what has he done? He has taken the eternal consequence for sin on himself. Praise the Lord. That's why we're saved, right? Because Jesus has taken the eternal consequence for our sins on himself. Therefore we get to have salvation. We also know there's not just eternal consequences for sin, there are temporal consequences for sin. What I mean by that is there are things that even though Jesus has redeemed us, even though he has saved us, even though he has reconciled us to the Father, there are consequences we experience when we choose sin. We all know the experience, right? Of maybe there was a big deal sin at one point where you chose that big deal sin and you felt super bad afterwards, you repented of it, went to confession, but the next time it was just a little bit easier to choose that sin and you felt a little less guilty afterwards. And then the next time was a little easier to choose that sin and you felt even less guilty the next. That's. Those are. Even though Jesus, you go to confession, he's paying the eternal consequence, the eternal price for our sin, we still experience the temporal consequences. Where now I'm just a little bit more attached to that sin. Now I'm just a little bit more numb or a little more dead to the guilt or the consequences of the sin. And that happened with so many things. I mean, how many people are just. You're sick of how much you drink and you can't get free from it. You're sick of how much you lie. But it's just like. It's just one of those habits now. You're sick of how much you gossip or take the Lord's name in vain. It's one of those situations where some people I'll talk to and they'll go back to confession again and again, they'll say, I don't want this lust. Whether that's acting out with someone, with themselves, pornography, whatever. The thing is. But they're saying, but I. I'm just stuck. They go to confession and the eternal consequence to our sins is dealt with. Jesus Christ reconciles us, but we all deal with the temporal consequence. I'm now attached to that sin. The biggest one is this, is that just living in this world, we realize my heart doesn't look like Christ's heart. Yeah, I might be saved by him, I might be redeemed by him, but my heart doesn't look like his. And my love does not look like the love of Jesus. But I need both these things, right? I need Jesus to deal with my eternal consequences of sin. I need Jesus to deal with my temporal consequences. Here's an analogy. About a year and a half ago, I hurt my back pretty badly. So what happened was I at one point herniated a disc in my spine. And what happened was that the disc material, like, broke off from between the vertebrae. And it broke off between the vertebrae and was apparently, this is how they told me, it was kind of like lodged between my vertebrae, the bone, and some nerves. And so it was constantly pressing on these nerves. And so I had this insane amount of pain, like, just constant. There was nothing I could do. And this is the thing, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't get into any position that was comfortable. I couldn't get anything that caused any relief. No matter what my physical therapist did, nothing helped. No matter how many painkillers I took, nothing helped. No matter. No amount of stretching, nothing helped. Because why? Because there is a thing lodged in my spine pressing against the nerve. So what happened? A physician, a surgeon had to go in. He had to go in and actually take out the thing. There's a picture of it. It looks like a fiery Cheeto. Hot Cheeto, because it's just this crab meat that they took out. And the moment, the moment he took it out, I woke up from the surgery and it was like the pain was completely gone. So I needed someone from the outside to come in and take away the crab meat. I needed someone to come from the outside and take away what was causing me so much pain. But here's the thing. After the surgery, that part was healed. But after the surgery, I spent days, I spent months in physical therapy because, yes, even though the surgeon came in and took care of the thing causing me the problem, I. I needed to be rehabbed. He took care of the eternal consequence, right? This thing that I could not do, no one else could do on their own. On my own. But after he did that, it wasn't like automatically I could just jump for joy and run around or lift things. It was. I then had to do physical therapy. That's the temporal consequences of sin. Sin does the same thing to us. Jesus reconciles us to himself. But then we have to learn how to be free again. Like we have to learn how to love again. Because why? Because our souls are dead because of sin. And Jesus is necessary. He's not optional. The grace of Jesus, the saving work of Jesus is absolutely necessary. He's dealt with the eternal consequence of our sin. But there are other consequences that we still have to deal with. And remember, as we noted this, all Christians believe this. Every Christian believed this until 500 years ago. And the reason why is because 500 years ago, Christians had this new idea of how salvation would work. And they call it like this. The Protestant view of salvation is what you might call declared righteousness. Basically, that God, because of Jesus, looks out over us and God declares the sinner righteous even though he remains internally sinful. So just, here's God. It just says, okay, you are guilty, you are internally sinful. I just going to declare you innocent. Now by the virtue of my son, what he's done, I'm going to declare you innocent. And so the idea behind this is the Protestant view is righteousness is imputed. It's not infused. Another way to say it is that Christ's righteousness covers us, but it doesn't change us. That's the Protestant view. And so what it is what salvation is. It's an event. It's an event like this. It's an event as if the doctor merely numbed my pain and didn't do anything about what was causing me the pain. That's Protestant view. It's imputed righteousness or declared righteousness. Nothing internally has been changed. Therefore you don't need purgatory, right? You don't need a purification process. Because why? Because you weren't made pure on this earth. You weren't healed on this earth. You were simply. Your guilt was simply covered over. The Catholic view, the ancient view is intrinsic, which I mean by that is we're actually changed by the work of Jesus Christ. We're changed from within, that we're actually made righteous. We're not simply declared righteous. That it is an event that happened at our baptism, but it's also a process. And this is really key for us. It's an event that began at our baptism, but it continues as a process. That the idea of our whole lives is we're cooperating with God's work. That's one of the reasons why. One of the reasons why Scripture, again and again, people say, like, what's the evidence for script for Purgatory in Scripture? Well, there's a bunch of evidence for purgatory in Scripture. One of this is this is that the fact that we have to work out our salvation, that what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, yes, it's given to us as an event, but we still have to cooperate with him over the course of our lives. St. Paul, writing to the Philippians, chapter two, even says this. He says, my beloved is obedient, as you have always been, not only when I'm present, but all the more when I'm absent. He says, I urge you to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Why? For God is the one who, for his good purposes, works in you both to desire and to work. So it's cooperating, right? It's not we don't work it on our own. It's we are cooperating with God because he's working in us, but we have to work with Him. This is the cooperation. This is why we realize salvation is not an event. It's an event and a process. St. Paul goes on to say in 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, he has this great example about the athlete, right? He says, every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown. This is a quote from 1 Corinthians, chapter 9. But we do this to win an imperishable crown. And he says about himself, he says, therefore, I do not run aimlessly. I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. He says, no, I drive my body and I train it for fear that after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified. St. Paul is realizing he's teaching us that, yes, at that moment when he was baptized, he was saved. But this is a process that he drives his body and trains it, working, cooperating with God. Because that's what salvation is. That's what sanctification is. And there's going to be a time when God's work, when God himself will purify our hearts, will purify our love, so that the only thing that remains is what can enter heaven. This is what I'm saying, okay? There's gonna be a moment, there's gonna be a time. This whole life is meant to be this. But after this life, the day of the Lord will come and God's very presence will purify everything in our hearts and everything in our love that can't enter heaven. This is actually from 1 Corinthians, chapter 3. This is what St. Paul says, Longer quote. But let's go with it. He says, according to the grace that God gave me, again, this is not him on his own. This is not salvation through works, not even close according to the grace God has given me. He says, like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation and another's building upon it. But each one must be careful how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely Jesus Christ. So this is God's work. And. And he invites us to cooperate with his work. And this is the next part. He says, if anyone builds a foundation on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones or wood, hay or straw, the work of each will come to light. For the day will disclose it, that the day is the capital D day, meaning the day of the Lord. When God comes close to us, or when we come close to him in our death, it will be revealed with fire. And the fire itself will test the quality of each one's work. If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, the person will receive a wage. But if someone's work is burned up, that one will suffer loss. The person will be saved, but only as through fire. This is scripture pointing once again to the reality that our salvation is a process. God does it, but we have to cooperate with Him. And if there is anything in my heart that doesn't belong in heaven because of God's mercy, He is going to burn it up. He's going to purify. That's literally what purgatory means. It simply means purification. We realize that what we need more than anything else is we need God's mercy. Because why? Because purgatory is not purgatory. Some people think this. Some people think purgatory is like, oh, hey, you, you didn't do so well. Try again. It's not. Purgatory is when we die in friendship with God, but my heart isn't ready for his presence. And so the gift of purgatory is. It's the continuation of God's mercy that completes what he started in this life. That's what purgatory is. Why? Because in this life, what is God doing? He's giving his mercy to us to heal our hearts so that our hearts can love. And if we fail to have that complete in this life, purgatory is a gift of God's mercy that completes what he began in this life. So let's go to the question. Let's look at ourselves for a second. If heaven was God alone. Meaning if heaven was only God, nothing else. No one else. No one you love. No other activity. No other. Now, keep in mind, Scripture says that seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be given to you besides. Right? So we know that heaven is more. But just imagine this. If heaven was only God, no family, no friends, would that be enough for you? Like, does that thought fill you with great consolation? Like, oh, that's all I want. I only want God. I don't care. Or does that thought fill you with a little bit of anxiety? Like, oh, no, that wouldn't be enough. If that's the case, then your heart and my heart, our hearts are not ready for Heaven. And if that's the case, God is so good, what does he do? He gives us what we need to get our hearts ready. Because why? Because Purgatory is God completing the process he's already begun. And that's the joy of purgatory. I mean, imagine this, you guys. Some people are so afraid of purgatory. I'm. I'm just looking forward to there's joy in purgatory. Why? Because imagine knowing this. Imagine being in purgatory and realizing, a, you made it, that's a big deal. Secondly. Or B, realizing that everything that God allows to happen to your soul in purgatory is one step closer is absolutely necessary to make your heart ready for heaven. So everything comes to you. Whether it's painful, whether it's purifying, whether it's like St. Paul said in First Corinthians, like a fire that burns up what shouldn't be there. Even if it's that you realize, no, this must be what I need. Because my heart needs this to be able to love God the way. Way my heart was designed to love God. Imagine the confidence you'd have in purgatory, the joy you'd have in purgatory, realizing God. If I'm going through this right now, it must be because my heart needs it to be able to love you the way you deserve to be loved. But remember this. Purgatory is merely the continuation or the completion of what God has begun in this life. What that means is you don't actually have to go to purgatory. You don't. If you can actually choose to allow everything that happens to you in this life, make your heart ready for heaven. If purgatory is just. That is the only thing that happens to you are what makes your heart ready for heaven. That's merely the continuation of what God is trying to do in your life and my life and your heart and my heart right now. Imagine if we had the perspective every morning we woke up, whatever happened, the aches and the pains, the sickness, the heartbreak, the annoyances, the inconveniences, the catastrophes, to realize the joys, the love, be able to say, God, this is what I must need right now to make my heart ready for heaven. The joy of purgatory. You can actually start living right now because why? Because again, purgatory is a place of joy. I'm convinced this world could be difficult, this life could be difficult. Realize this. If you've made it to purgatory, you've made it. I mean, there's still work to be done, right? But if you've made it to purgatory, you've made it. And I remember this. Years ago, my family was on vacation in Canada. And at one point, we needed to get to the Vancouver airport. All of us. There was a whole family, all eight of us. We need to get Vancouver airport to fly back home, back home to Minnesota. And I remember my. We were driving. It was one of the situations where it should have taken us an hour. It took us four hours. And at one point, we find ourselves. We found ourselves in downtown Vancouver trying to find the airport. Pro tip. The Vancouver airport is not downtown. And so we finally, finally get to the airport. This is before 2001. 9, 11, right. So there were no security checkpoints. My dad and mom pulled the rental car up to the. Up to the place where you could drop people off. And they were like, get out of the car. Just go to the gate. Just run there. And so here we are, all the kids, we're all running to the gate. We get to the gate. Now this is after four hours of just. I don't think we're gonna make it. We're not gonna make it. We're not gonna make it. We get to the plane just as they're shutting the doors. We get inside and we were all, all six of us, like, high fiving. And we totally forgot about my parents, you know, but we're just like, they'll figure it out. But we, we sat down. Actually, what happened was my parents dropped off the rental car. They ran through the airport. They got to the gate and the door was already shut. But my mom, my mom was like, my children are on that plane. My kids are on that plane. So they opened the, Open the door, and they Let her on, and she didn't tell them. We were all teens in our 20s, but we sat on that. When I sat down in that seat on that plane, I didn't care how long. If we had to. If we were delayed, didn't matter. If we had to sit on the tarmac for I don't know how many hours, didn't matter, because I knew what I knew one thing I knew the next time we stepped off this plane, we would be home. After spending so many hours of just this anxiety of, are we going to make it? Are we going to make it to be on that plane, even if it was an uncomfortable flight, even if it was delayed, it didn't matter. Because why? Because next stop is home, and that's purgatory. Imagine, imagine waking up in purgatory saying, okay, God, whatever the joy is this, whatever is happening to me, you need to happen to me so I can love you the way I'm supposed to love you. Because next stop is home. Next stop is heaven. This is the last thing. That's why we have this day. We have this day because there are people who have gone ahead of us. There are people who have died, and we are praying for them. We realize that. Second Maccabees, chapter 12 talks about how good and righteous it is, how good and holy it is to pray for those who have died. And again, as I said many, many times, this has been the custom, the tradition, the belief of every Christian for the first 1500 years of Christianity. When my mom died, and we were trying to figure out, what do you put on her funeral card? Went back through all scripture verses and all these kind of things, and I remember just being reminded of a story of St. Augustine and his mom, Monica. St. Monica. There's a story where Monica is getting older and she's sick, and she and Augustine and his brother are away from home. And one night, Augustine writes about this. He says, one night we were talking about what comes after. Talking about what comes after this. Because she was getting sick, they knew that death was approaching. And so they just talked about all the things, you know, forgetting what lies behind, but going to what lies ahead, what comes after this? And after that profound conversation, Monica, she fell ill with a fever. And so they prayed and they're there. And at one point, she came out of this fever and her other son was trying to give her reassurances that, mom, you're going to recover. You're going to recover. And then what we're going to do is we're going to bring you back home and bury you in your homeland. That would be a consolation for somebody. Bury you where you grew up, would bury you where your ancestors are. And it's so good because at one point Augustine writes and says, my mom looked at me as if to say, what is he saying? This guy's crazy. I don't care. She said, here's one thing I'm asking for you. She said, lay this body anywhere. Let not the care of it trouble you at all. Only this I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord, wherever you may be. Here is St. Augustine in the first centuries of the church and his mom, St. Monica, saying, you can bury me wherever. All I ask is that you remember me at the altar. And I thought of this. We put that. That quote on my mom's funeral card. Because before she had died, she had said, listen, I'm gonna put. You have to say so many masses for me in my will, because I don't want you thinking I'm already holy and already in heaven, already a saint kind of thing. I'm like, mom, trust me, don't worry about it. I'll be praying for you. No one thinks you're a saint, but. But to be able to pray for her, you have someone that you love, that you've lost. To be able to pray for them is one of the greatest gifts that God has given to all of us. Not just a gift for those who have died, a continuation of the completion of God's mercy. What he started in this life, the process that he began here, but the fact that he. He lets. What we do here. Actually one of the ways, one of the last ways we get to care for those whom we love and have lost. And realize this, after this. After this Mass, something will have changed. After this Mass, there will be something that is different and will never be the same. Realize that there are souls right now in Purgatory who by the end of this Mass will be in Heaven. There are people who have died and have gone through that process of their heart being enlarged, their love being purified, themselves being made more and more like Jesus by His grace. But because of your prayers, our prayers right here, because what Jesus has done, by the end of this Mass, they will be in heaven. In just a few minutes, from our perspective, in just a few minutes. Keep the homily shorter, Father. In just a few minutes, there are people who will step from that place of purification into the place of absolute and perfect love. And their hearts will be ready. And that's about to happen right after this.