← Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
11/24/24 Made for Worship: Glorifying the Lord by Your Life
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Miss the Livestream? Want to Donate? Make a Donation: http://www.bulldogcatholic.org https://www.givemn.org/organization/Newman-Catholic-Campus-Ministries-At-Umd Watch the Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTybyJQuDQY Homily from the Solemnity of Christ the King. The Mass is the fuel for our life in the world...and our life in the world is an extension of the Mass. The words, "The Lord be with you" are meant to prepare us for great things...dangerous things. When we hear them at the end of Mass, they prepare us to bring what we've done at the altar out to the world.
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Father Mike
Hi, this is Father Mike. As you know, this last week we had our annual Give to the Max Day. And I am so humbled by your response and what the Lord has done this week, man, just seriously, what a gift. I am so moved by the generosity of those who have supported Boldlai Catholic, not just this last week, but over the course of so many years, whether it was financially supporting us or supporting us spiritually through your prayers. I am so honestly cannot put into words how grateful I am. And I cannot tell you how much it means to me, how much means to these students that will be able to serve them in this ministry throughout the year and in the years to come. And here's the reality. Because of your generosity, because of God's faithfulness to the ministry, our ministry has grown exponentially over the last number of years. The growing ministry comes a growing staff. The growing ministry comes growing ministry staff, greater demand to serve these students. You know, a couple years ago we had celebrated the fact that we reached 1% of the students. 1% of the students and on campus had been involved in a Bible study. 1% of the campus had been invited into discipleship this week. 4%. And that might sound like nothing, but just think of a couple Years ago, only 1% of these students had been invited to a Bible study. 4%. Who knows what's going to happen in two or three more years? 8%. 16%. We're just so grateful for this. Lastly, I don't just want to thank you for your generosity. I also want to thank you for your trust. Thank you for trusting me, for trusting the team I'm working with, that we're doing everything we possibly can to honor your gift and to use it for the advancement of God's kingdom. And so I just please want to thank you for trusting us. Thank you for sacrificing so that we can continue to sacrifice for these students. If you're listening to this and you feel as if you missed out on the chance to take part in the Give to the Max day, there is still time to be part of it. The Give to the Max campaign runs throughout the end of November. So if you'd like to give, you can still find the links in the notes below or you can visit bulldogcatholic.org donate or just even go to bulldogcatholic.org on its own and you'll be able to find the find the link. Once again, thank you again so much. And please keep us in our prayers, your prayers. And we know that we're praying for you as well, God bless. The Lord be with you. A reading from the holy Gospel according to John. Glory to you, oh Lord. Chapter 18, verses 33 through 37. Pilate said to the Jews, Pilate said to Jesus, are you the King of the Jews? Jesus answered, do you say this on your own, or have others told you about me? Pilate answered, I'm not a Jew. Am I your own nation? And the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, my kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here. So Pilate said to him, then you are a king. Jesus answered, you say, I am a king. For this I was born. And for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ. You'd have a seat. So among the first words of the mass are the last words of the mass. Like that. That. That. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, that. That the beginning of the mass and the end of the mass are kind of almost exactly the same. The first words and the final words are. Among them are, the Lord be with you. And. And I know sometimes when we. We talk about, like, okay, so we hear that. Actually, we hear it four times in the mass. Those words, the Lord be with you. Sometimes, I don't know, we can think that they just mean, like, hey, like, what's up? Beginning of the mass. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Lord be with you. Like, basically, we're just saying, how are you doing today? We're not just asking, how are you doing today? That is not what the Lord be with you means. In fact, in the Bible, if you ever go through the Bible, almost every time an angel or a messenger, a prophet comes on the scene and says the words, the Lord be with you to someone, it's a signal. Basically, it means that God is calling that person to something great. What God has planned for that person is they're about to embark on something incredible. They're actually about to embark on something that's very, very dangerous. And so at the beginning of Mass, when the priest greets us and says, the Lord be with you, what he's saying is, okay, you're about to. You're invited to do something great. You're invited to do something awesome. You're invited to do something great. And in fact, as I Said he has it four times. And every time the priest says that the Lord be with you, it's increasing awesomeness, it's increasing greatness, it's increasing danger. So at the beginning of the Mass, Lord be with you, because we're about to enter into this place of worship, the beginning of the Gospel. The priest says, the Lord be with you because we're about to hear the words of Jesus Christ before the Eucharistic prayer, before the Holy, Holy, Holy, right. The priest says, the Lord be with you. Why? Because we're about to enter into the holies of holy. And the last time the priest tells us, the Lord be with you is among those final words in the Mass before we're sent out into the world. So this is the sixth part of a six part series called Made for Worship. We've been walking through this whole reality that the heart of religion, over all of humanity, over all of history, heart of religion has been worship. And the heart of worship is sacrifice. And that the sacrifice that God has asked for us to do is the Mass, the sacrifice. Jesus said, okay, do this in memory of me. And so this is the most important thing we can do. But here's the question, is that restricted to what we do here in the sense this. Does all of religion just simply. If the heart of religion is worship and heart of worship is sacrifice, and we, when we say the Mass, that's the heart of everything, is that limited to what we do here? Because you realize in the Old Testament, remember, worship only happened in the temple in Jerusalem. And last week we even talked about how the rabbis had said in the age of the Messiah, all other sacrifices would cease except for the Torah, right? The Eucharistic, the Thanksgiving sacrifice. And this is critical because that's liturgical worship. And this liturgical worship is absolutely essential. Back in the, back in the year 304, the Emperor Diocletian, right, the Roman Emperor Diocletian, declared Christianity once again illegal. And so what was happening is all over the Roman Empire, they're rounding up Christians if they gathered and torturing them, imprisoning them and executing them. There was this town called Abitine or Abitinia, and the Christians, they heard the warning from the Emperor Diocletian that, no, you can't gather if you're a Christian, you must not gather as Christians. But these 49 of them, at least 49 of them, they gathered on Sunday for Mass and they arrested them all and they tortured almost all of them. In fact, if you read an account of this torture, it's remarkable because the question of the Roman authorities was, why? Like, why did you go to. You knew that the rule was, don't show up for Mass as a Christian or you're going to get tortured like you are, or you're going to get killed like you're about to be. Why? Why did you do this? And almost all of them, their answer was the same. There's in fact one person, he was asked the question, why you knew what would happen to you if you showed up for Mass. Why did you do it? And his response was, oh, foolish question. Which I think is awesome. He's being tortured and he's like, that's a dumb question. But he says that basically, that's a dumb question. Why would you show up for Mass? It's a dumb question. He goes on to say, as if a person could be Christian without the Mass. That's his response. Why did you show up for Mass as a Christian? He says, as if a person could be Christian without the Mass. He goes on to say, as there can be no Mass without Christians, so there can be no Christians without the Mass. There can be no Christians without the Mass. This, what we do here is again, absolutely essential. But the question remains, is there a way to bring this out there into the world? And I would say not only is there a way, but there's a necessity. You know, today is the feast, the solemnity, right, of Christ the King, the Lord of the Universe. The reality is that that means Jesus Christ has a kingdom, and that his kingdom is not limited to the church walls. I mean, yeah, Jesus reigns in here, but, no, he actually reigns everywhere. The entire universe, everything is His. And that's what we're saying when we are Christians, we're saying, no, Jesus is the Lord of everything. In fact, there's a scholar, his name is Abraham Kuyper, and he had this great quote. His quote was this. He said, there's not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry out mine. It's all His. It's all for him. And so here, the worship at the Mass, what we do at the altar, what does it do? Every single one, every single time we have the Mass, it always glorifies the Father. It always saves the world. And here's the thing, it is so good that it can't stay here. That's why the actual final words of the Mass, after the priest says, the Lord be with you, because you're about to do something incredibly dangerous, he then Says, now go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life. What's the Mass do? It glorifies the Father, saves the world. At the end of the Mass, the priest says, okay, now go and you glorify the Father by your life. And you saved the world by your life. But this here is essential. You know, I remember coming across this statistic that talked about married couples and it said that in fact the intimate, the private lives of married couples and said that even though the sexual relationship, the sexual embrace is vital, is critical when it comes to marriage, in fact, the sexual embrace is what makes marriage different than any other human relationship. Sexual embrace, it's essential to a marriage. And this person had said, they did the math. They said, if a couple who was married for 50 years and they had the sexual enter the sexual embrace like three times a week, roughly average, on average, over the 50 years. Now, I once said that in a group of like 300 couples who are married from six months to 60 years, and there was a lot of laughter from that. I don't know if that's a lot or that's a little. That's just the number the person gave. If a couple was married for 50 years and they enter the sexual embrace three times a week over the course of 50 years, that's pretty healthy. They said that still 99.7% of their marriage would be spent outside of the sexual embrace. That here's the sexual embrace, super important, in fact, essential for marriage. And yet 99.7% of their relationship would be spent outside of the sexual embrace. What we do here is essential. Remember what they said. We cannot be Christians without the Mass. But 99 plus percent of our lives is spent somewhere else. So is there a way to take what we have here and what we do here and bring it out into the world? In fact, that's God's original plan. If you go back to the book of Genesis, chapter one and two, and you hear how God describes the design and creation of the universe, basically, if you look at the language, it's like God is building a cosmic temple. In fact, the Garden of Eden, it's described that way in the terms of like, no, this all is attached to worship. In fact, when God puts Adam in the garden, he puts him in the garden with two jobs. In English says to cultivate and to keep the garden, to cultivate and to guard the garden. Those two words in Hebrew are Abu Dhah and Shemar. And those words, abudar, to cultivate and shamar, to keep or to guard. They're great words. I don't know if you know this, but whenever those two words are found together in the Hebrew scriptures, they're always in reference to the work of the priests in the temple. Whenever Abbadah and Shemar are together, it's always in reference to what the priests do in the temple. What that is saying is that originally God's plan for humanity seems to have been connected to this idea that every. Everything you do is attached to worship. If the whole universe is a temple, and your job is to Abu DH and Shemar, your job is to in some ways cultivate and to keep everything we do, at least for everything we're meant to do, is attached to worship. And I believe as Christians, this is still the case. Why? Because think of that word, temple. We have the God's cosmic temple, right? He makes the whole universe as his temple. Then we have the Jerusalem Temple. Do we? Here's a question. Is there any time in Christian life or any place in Christian life that we refer to as a temple? The answer is yes. What is that? You. Right. St. Paul says you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. So just like the world meant to be the cosmic temple, so the presence of God is there, just like the temple in Jerusalem is the presence of God there. Your temple, Holy Spirit, the presence of God is among you. But remember this. Remember the temple is not merely the place of God's presence. The the temple is also the place of sacrifice. And so if you are a temple of the Holy Spirit, that means not only that when you, wherever you walk, wherever you go, you bring the presence of God himself with you. It also means wherever you go and wherever you travel, you bring the sacrifice with you. That's one of the reasons why I believe that St. Paul, writing to the Romans, he said, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and beloved. Now think about this. If you're the temple of the Holy Spirit, you're not only the presence of God, you're also the place of the sacrifice. So offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and beloved. Remember last week we went through the third Eucharistic prayer, and at one point it says, father, basically, lord, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice, right? The sacrifice of Jesus Christ to the Father, which does what glorifies the Father, saves the world. And St. Paul says, now also offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and beloved. What's that do? Glorifies the Father and saves the world. That's why those final words, lord be with you, because you're about to do something amazing. You're about to do something incredible, you're about to do something dangerous. You're about to glorify the Lord by your life, even. Even in simple ways. So it's not just the, you know, the 0.3% of our lives that are spent in worship at the altar or not the 0.3% of marriages that are spent in the sexual embrace, but it's. Every part of our lives is meant to be an extension of. Of what we do here. In fact, I remember thinking about this. This, you know, 99.7% of marriage spent outside the sexual embrace. I have a friend, his name is Zach. And Zach and Nikki got married a bunch of years ago. And remember when they first got married, Zach was telling me about how Nicky, no one likes doing the dishes, but Nikki has this inordinate distaste for doing the dishes. And so Zach, in their marriage, he's like, even after, gosh, 15, 20 years, somewhere in there, he's like, no, I just do the dishes. Like, that's where I get to. I know my wife doesn't like doing the dishes, so I just do the dishes. Now, Zach was roommates in college and after college with Father Ben. He's one of our priests in our diocese. And at one point, Father Ben was over at Zach and Nicky's house and in their kitchen as Zach is doing the dishes. And Father Ben looks at Zack and said, Zack points at the sink. He says, zack, that's your altar. Zach's like, what do you mean, that's my altar? He's like, no, that's where you get to lay down your life for your bride. Because that's the thing. 99.7% of our lives is spent of their lives spent outside the sexual embrace, 99.7% of our lives is spent here outside of the Mass. And so our call is to do what? What St. Paul wrote in Coloss 3. 23. He says, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart. As for the Lord, whatever. Doing the dishes is how you love your wife. Showing up and being there for someone is how we love the Lord. Whatever you do, do with all your heart. As for the Lord. In fact, in First Corinthians, St. Paul also doubles down and says, whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Remember what the mass does glorifies the Father, saves the world. And St. Paul says, Whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Here's a question. What would change if this was our vision? Like, what would change if we know, like, no, I'm made for worship, and I know what I'm doing at the mass. Now, what would change if what we did here at mass became fuel for what we did out in the world? What would change if what we did in the world we saw as an extension of what we did in the mass? Think about that. What we do. What would change if the mass became fuel for what I did in the world? And what I saw myself doing in the world was merely an extension of what I did here. Basically, Jesus, your kingdom, Father, your kingdom come. And what I see my life as is an extension of God's kingdom. And again and everything. My recreation, my rest, my work. Interesting. I think, you know, we're going to spend most of our lives at work. What if your vision was this, the work I do is an extension of the worship I give the Lord. And not just if you're a priest or a nun or a missionary, but all work. You're a teacher, you're a garbage collector, you're a plumber, you're a professor, you're a soldier. You are a professional person. You're a student. Now, I talk to so many students who say, yeah, but my work is not. It's pretty meaningless. It's a lot. My teacher gives us a lot of busy work. And that term busy work is such. I really dislike the term busy work. I know it kind of exists in some level, but on the other level, you realize, wait a second. Whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Which means that even, like the busywork, paperwork, managerial work, filing work, sorting work, all the work that you think is beneath you, that is Abu Dhah and Shemar, that is work that can cultivate and keep and cultivate and guard. Because why Jesus Saving work was accomplished in three hours on the cross. But Jesus, daily work was done over 30 years in Nazareth. And yes, the one saves us the three hours on the cross. That's what saved us. But all of his work mattered. And what was his work for 30 years? What was his job? We know he was a carpenter. Yeah, sure. But in Greek, that term is tecton. I don't know if you know this. The work Jesus did was. He was a tecton now, which could mean carpentry. And the image you might have of, you know, here's Joseph and Jesus working together in a carpenter's workshop, you know, sawdusty and really calm and cool. That's fine. That could be that. But the word tecton also means stonemason. It also just simply means laborer So I sometimes imagine that here's Jesus's work, you know, when Jesus was growing up. Archaeologists have discovered that there was a town that was being built at the same time Jesus was living in Nazareth, just a couple miles from Nazareth. So my imagination is that Jesus, every morning with Joseph, he'd get up and he'd commute. He'd walk a couple miles to this town that was being built. And all he did all day was just haul rocks, because that's what a tecton would do. A tecton could be a carpenter, a stonemason. A tecton could also just be a laborer who holds rocks all day. This mindless work, this busy work, this meaningless work. But Abu DHA and Shemar, important work. It's like your work that we have to come into contact with the world in order to save it. Of course, we need contemplatives, right? We need monks and nuns who. Their work is to enter into silence. Their work is to retreat. Their work is to enter into prayer. That's the work that God has given them to do. But most of us are called to be like Jesus, who entered the world, who came into contact with the world, to redeem the world. Which is why we have to be careful. Because when you hear those words, go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life, it's dangerous because a lot of times we just take ourselves into the world. But when the priest tells us, no, go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life, he's saying, okay, you have to bring the worship out into the world. That you have to bring the sacrifice into your work. You have to bring grace into your relationships. That basically we have to bring Jesus with us, which is one of the reasons why we have to be so prepared. We have to be so on guard again. Remember that last. The Lord be with you is because you're about to enter into the most dangerous part of this whole thing and the greatest part of this whole thing, which is to take your worship back into your work. But too often, we just take ourselves. So years ago, in the fourth century, there was a guy named St. John Chrysostom. One of my favorites, St. John Chrysostom, was writing to people in the fourth century about bringing what we do at the mass out into the world. And he said, basically, if you're going to do this, you have to be guarded by Scripture. And I'm going to read this about. It's a longer quote, but here we go. So he says, I'm always encouraging you to pay Attention not only what is said here in church, again in church, but also when you're at home. He says to constantly continue constantly in the practice of reading the divine scriptures. Let not anyone say to me those silly, contemptible words, well, I'm stuck at the courthouse all day, or I'm tied up with political affairs, or I'm in an apprentice program, or I'm a businessman, or even the words, reading the Bible isn't my thing. That's for those who are set apart, who have made their mountaintops their home, who have a life without interruptions. And that could be us, right? Like, I just don't have time. I don't have time to read the Bible, and I'm trying to bring God into my work. He says, what are you saying, man? This is A quote from St. John Chrysostom. What are you saying, man? It's not your business to pay attention to the Bible because you're distracted by thousands of concerns. He says, then Bible reading belongs more to you than to the monks. For monks do not make as much use of the help of divine scriptures as those who always have a great many things to do. But you are always standing in the line of battle and are constantly being hit. So you need more medicine. For not only does your spouse irritate you, but your son annoys you and your servant makes you lose your temper. Like, yeah, you're like, my butler isn't showing up on time. He goes on to say, an enemy schemes against you, a friend envies you, a neighbor insults you, a colleague trips you up often, a lawsuit impends poverty, distresses, loss of possessions bring sorrow. At one moment, success puffs you up and another, failure deflates you. Numerous powerful inducements to anger and anxiety, to discouragement and grief, to vanity and loss of sense surround us on every side. A thousand missiles rain down from every direction. And so we constantly need the whole range of equipment supplied by scripture. He goes on to say, it is not possible, not possible for anyone to be saved who does not constantly have the benefit of spiritual reading. Because you're out there in battle, because the words at the end of Mass are, go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life. So we need to take our worship to our work. We need to take our sacrifice into our relationships, even in such simple ways as if we were to do this. Even something as simple as noticing someone and asking them, how are you doing today? Could make a difference. This is the last thing some of you may have heard of a young woman named Michelle Dupont. Michelle Grew up around the Bismarck area in North Dakota and went to ndsu. She was a student there. She became a FOCUS missionary after she left Focus, she was a religious educator for the Diocese of Bismarck. Anyways, great young woman. Everyone you talk to about Michelle would say that she was very normal. And yet Michelle died at the age of 31 in 2015 after a year's battle with cancer. She actually, the cause for her canonization is underway. She's now servant of God, Michelle Dupong. They made a movie about her life called Radiating Joy. And in the movie, it's remarkable. Even people talking about her life is remarkable because one of the things I say about Michelle is that she was so normal. Like, talking to her mom and dad. Her siblings are like, no, no. Totally normal girl. Like, totally normal sister. We had all the same fights over all the same stuff. That when she was a missionary, one of her pain points of being a missionary is they sent her. At one point, she was ndsu, North Dakota State University. She was sent to sdsu, South Dakota. And it was actually. It was a. Caused her grief. And you think, like, no, saints don't care about that kind of thing. Like, no, it actually, she was like, these are arch rivals. Like, to have to go to enemy territory and bring Jesus to them. It's like Jonah going to Nineveh. Like, that kind of situation. You're like, that's ridiculous. But it's not ridiculous because it's real life. But even in the midst of all of all of this, one thing that Michelle did was she allowed what she did at the mass, transformed the way she lived her life. So she's diagnosed with cancer in December of 2014. She died on December 25, Christmas Day, 2015, one year later. There's a significant moment when her doctor comes into her hospital room and tells her that they've tried everything, that they've done everything, and that this cancer would take her life soon. And as this doctor is giving her the worst news of her entire life, Michelle stops. She looks at him. She says, but, doctor, how are you doing today? And this doctor, he said, he paused and he had to leave. He had to leave the room. He said, I don't share the same faith as Michelle. I don't believe in the same things as Michelle. But I just gave her the worst news of her entire life. And she was concerned with how I was doing. See, that's what it is to take what we do here out there. That's what it means to have these first words. The Lord be with you. And the last words, the Lord be with you. Because we're made for worship. That worship is made to go out into the world. That the Mass is meant to be fuel for our lives, and our lives are meant to be an extension of the Mass. And what is the Mass? It is the place where God is loved and glorified and this world is saved and sanctified. So we're called to take that worship out into the world. It can be something as simple as looking at someone and saying, how are you doing today? It can be something as simple as bringing the worship into your work. Something as simple as living the way we worship, because that's what our lives are called to do and called to be. Our lives are called to be the place where God is loved and glorified and the world is saved and sanctified. Therefore, go in peace glorifying the Lord by your life.