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 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 21, verses 25 through 28 and verses 34 through 36 Jesus said to his disciples, there will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth. Nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken, and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand. Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life. And that day catch you by surprise like a trap, for that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Invite you to have a seat. So here we are on December 1, and we are starting this, starting this Advent, this new season, as I mentioned at the beginning of Mass, this new church year. And I don't know if you know this, but this is maybe one of the only Advent, the only Advent that I paid attention to it where we are starting on December 1st, we end on December 25th. So we have 25 days exactly the 25 days of Christmas, just like Hallmark tells me. Because that's how it feels, right? So often. So often what we watch, what we do over the next 25 days feels like a. It's like it should be a Hallmark experience in the sense of what am I going to do? Well, I mean, I imagine it even happened last week where you're getting together with your family at Thanksgiving. Hopefully you got together with your family at Thanksgiving. And just talking about like, okay, we always do such and such like at Thanksgiving, we always do these things. And all now for the next 25 days at Adventure, leading up to Christmas, we always do these kind of things. And so we always watch the same movies, we always listen to the same songs, we always go to the same parties. We have to go. I mean, I remember as a kid, we had to go slitting in the same hill, all those kinds of things. And I need the weather to be exactly how it should be. Last year was horrible. There was no snow at all, like, basically in Minnesota. And so it didn't feel like Christmas. Why? Because so much of this time, so much for these next 25 days, will be spent trying to recreate or to capture something that I once had. I mean, I was thinking about this. When it comes to Christmas movies, some of my favorites are actually what I think. I think they're great movies. Like, I think It's a Wonderful Life, it's one of the greatest movies of all time. But I would say A Christmas Story, you know, Ralphie, you shoot your eye out, is not a great movie. It's not like, high film, but it's awesome. And I have to watch it because why, when I watch those movies, I'm recreating something for my youth. I'm capturing something that I don't have anymore. Same thing is true of the albums I listen to, right? The Christmas albums. I love Christmas music, and I try to hold off listening as long as I can. But you play John Denver and the Muppets. Christmas, I am, like, all for it. It takes me back. It transports me. Amy Grant, a Christian singer, had two different separate Christmas albums. I listened to both of them, love them. Barbara, she's like Butta. Barbra Streisand, she had a Christmas album and last Advent, I probably played it at least once a day because my mom loved that album. And so I press play on it, and instantly I can hear my mom singing along with Barbara. And it's just so interesting, fascinating, that I think it's one of the reasons why it's really hard to make a new Christmas album that becomes classic. Unless you're more I carry. But it's like, otherwise, it's. I'm pressing play because what am I doing? I'm trying to recreate. I'm trying to capture something that I once had. And often it's something that I've now lost. So we ask the question, what is it that I'm trying to capture? What is it that I'm trying to recreate? What is it that I think I maybe have lost? We're going to get to that. But I'll say, I think it has everything to do with couch cushions. But before we get to couch cushions, like, let's pause on this and actually say, okay. While we fill up our lives with Christmas music and Christmas movies and Christmas activities during Advent, the question is, so why does the church give us Advent? Like, what's the whole point of Advent? So you probably know this, that the meaning of the word Advent means coming or arrival. And so Advent is a time of preparation for what? Well, for the arrival or the coming of Jesus. But here's the. I think this is fascinating. The church actually says, okay, so the season of Advent is a preparation for three arrivals of Jesus or the three comings of Christ. One is it's a preparation to celebrate Christ's first coming at Christmas. So kind of, I think in many ways, what we try to do, like normally, naturally, during Advent is the point, right? We want to prepare our hearts so we can adequately and appropriately celebrate Christmas, which is great. But secondly, we are preparing to recognize the ways Jesus comes to us. Now, that's actually what Advent is for, is to help us prepare to recognize how Jesus comes to us in prayer, in the scriptures, in sacraments. And thirdly, Advent was given to us by the church as a season to prepare to be ready for Christ's final coming at the end of time. Just think about this for a couple seconds. Those first two, great. They're awesome. You know, again, I do want to suspend my Advent getting ready to celebrate Christmas really well. Super good. And yes, the second one, I do want to spend my Advent or my life preparing to recognize how Jesus comes to our lives on a regular basis, on a daily basis, on a moment by moment basis. Again, in prayer, in scripture, in the sacrament, in daily life. Like that is fascinating. If you and I live like that, that would be awesome if we're prepared to recognize how Jesus is present to our lives. But this, this third reality, this third goal of Advent, remember, the church for hundreds and hundreds of years has said, okay, Christians, take these three to four weeks for us, these, these 25 days and do this one thing. Prepare for the moment when Christ will come back into this world at the end of time. Again, this was preparation for the second coming of Christ. And you know, a couple years ago, something about that struck me. It was one of those situations where I was thinking, wait, we know, we don't know the day or the hour. Jesus made that absolutely clear. So we don't know when he'll come back. But I Do know that you and I will each have an opportunity to meet Jesus as he is at one point in our lives. Meaning that on the last moment of our lives, on the moment we die, the day we die, that day, that day the universe will end. As far as we're concerned, right at that day, time will end. As far as we're concerned, that day we will stand before the Lord. And so I always had this thought a couple years ago, is okay if Advent is a season to prepare us to receive Jesus, to stand before Jesus at the end of time. I don't know when that's coming, but what if I did? What if I knew? And this is what we're gonna talk about this whole Advent. What if I knew that December 25 was the day that I would see the Lord? Another way to say it is, what if I knew that December 25 was the day I was going to die? And I was given 25 days from December 1 to December 25 to prepare to stand before the Lord and see him face to face? Right? That's what Jesus says in the Gospel. He says, I pray that you have the strength to stand before the Son of Man. But imagine what would have to happen in my life in the next 25 days so that I would be able and joyful about the idea, the concept, the reality of standing before God face to face, no hiding and nothing to hide, nothing left undone. A life that has been completed so that you and I could stand before the Lord face to face. So that's this Advent. That is this series that we're starting right now, today, on December 1st. How do I live the next 25 days in such a way that if I were to die on December 25, I could stand before the Lord face to face. How can I live so that again, I have no hiding, nothing left to hide, nothing left undone? How do I do that? Well, I think there's a couple things. We're going to talk about them over the course of the next 25 days, but I think the first thing has everything to do with couch cushions. Here's what I mean. I think we have to acknowledge the reality of couch cushions. So I have a bunch of nieces and nephews, and I love every one of them. I have some who are, like, fully grown, and my oldest niece is married, and she has two kids of her own. It goes from her all the way down to my youngest nephew, who's less than a year old, and everyone in between. And so some of them are like. Like they're already out in the world, they're already doing, like, incredible things. I just see them as young men and young women on college, at college, beyond college, and just, like, just bringing their faith into the world. I'm so proud of them. Others are, you know, in high school, junior high. And some of the little ones, they're still finding their way. What I mean by that is, so last summer, they had an experience where some of the little ones, they were staying with grandpa out at. Out at the lake. And there's a room at my grandpa's place or my dad's place, their grandpa's place that is like. It's a game room, kind of a TV room, kind of a hangout room. And so the girls were able to go upstairs and, yeah, you can play the games, you can do crafts, you can. You can color, you can watch tv, you can hang out all those things. Just whatever you do, there's no food. This is the rule. You can do all the things you want, have all the fun you want up there, but the rule is no food in the game room. No food in that room over there. Great. No problem. So here the girls are up there. They stayed with my dad for, like, a week. And we'll say. We'll say this. We'll say grandpa was a little less than vigilant about, you know, going up and making sure that the game room was being tidied up. We'll say it like this. So at one point, some of the older cousins and some of the parents were like, hey, girls, let's go up to the. Up to the game room. Do you guys have any food up here? Any snacks up here? No, no snacks up here. Well, there were indeed very much snacks up here, because at one point, one of the cousins was like, really, girls? And walked over to the couch cushions and reached in the couch cushions and started pulling out like it was. It was a closet full of wrappers that were stuck in the couch cushions. It was like there were candy bar wrappers, There were chip bag wrappers, There were ice cream treat wrappers. They were just. And they pulled these, you know, even, like, the sticks. You know, the ice cream treat sticks thing out of inside of there. And it was like. It was a mess. They had taken all the food, and they just, like, no, no, no. Instead of, like, even getting rid of the evidence, they just hid it by sticking it in the couch cushions. And there was this moment as all these things are being pulled out and the girls are just standing there and having to look at the face of the Adults, including the older cousins, who are realizing, we know what you've done. Like, we know not only. Not only know that you lied about this, but here with every rapper we can see, like, oh, you took that thing and you had that snack, and you had this snack and you had this thing, and you snuck this thing. And all the things they were sneaking, all the things they thought they were hiding, all the things they thought they were getting away with, all of a sudden, it was right there in this pile in front of the couches. It was no longer in the couch cushions. It was there for everyone to see. I don't know if you've ever been in that place where you're standing in front of someone who, like, oh, now they know. Like, have you ever been in that place where you're standing in front of someone and you realize, okay, I've done something wrong, and now they know I was hiding. And now you know, like, I was sneaking, and now you can see this. This is our experience, right? And this crazy thing is, if the goal of adventure is to be seen by God, if the goal of Advent is to stand before the Lord face to face, we have to acknowledge the reality of couch cushions, which is, I don't know if I want to see him. I don't know if I want to be seen by him, because I have the desire to hide. I think we all have the desire to hide. We have this desire to hide because we carry this thing around called shame. And we fear. I think that someday all the things we did and someday all the stuff we hid in the couch cushions, from the small things to the big things, all of it's going to be seen. And so we hide. I mean, can you think about. Can you remember the first time you ever experienced that? Like, I don't want you to know this about me. Have you ever experienced that? That sense of, like, oh, I don't want my parents finding out about this. I don't want my siblings knowing this. I don't want my friends to know this. I think sometimes those things can be connected to appearance or performance. So often, I mean, I don't know if you ever had that. What was the first time you had the thought, I don't like this about my appearance? And then what happens is you just become so, okay, as long as people don't see this, as long as they don't notice this, as long as I can cover this thing up or that sense of. I know when it comes to performance, it can be that time where it says, okay, I Don't really do well in school. And so I don't want anyone to know that I'm not a good test taker. I don't want people to know that I struggle to read or I struggle to do math. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to cover that up. And I cover that up because I'm going to be really good at sports. I'm going to be really, really funny. I'm going to be really engaging. I'm going to do something else. And all those things that we do are just ways that we try to hide. They're just ways that we try to cover up the thing we're ashamed of. And it's not even like we should be ashamed of this, but it's a thing about ourselves that we think we need to hide. And I think about that when it comes to Luke's Gospel. Here's Jesus. And Jesus says, beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and anxieties of daily life. And I wonder, like Jesus, what is he talking about here? I think, well, talking about don't become drowsy because of carousing and drunkenness, because those things are sins. But that last one, the anxieties of daily life, like, what is that? I think it can be a lot of things, but I think, what is that in our life right now? I think the anxieties of daily life are the things we pack into our lives to cover up the stuff we're ashamed of. I don't like this about me. I don't think I'm enough. So in this area, I'm going to overachieve or you can't know this about my broken heart. And so in this area, I'm going to be accepted. And what we end up doing is we just end up packing our. And Jesus is warning us about the anxieties of daily life. Because what he's saying is, if you spend your life hiding, then at the end you won't have the strength to stand that. If we. If I spend my life stuffing that stuff into the couch cushions, then when someone reaches in and says, hey, can I have this? Can I see this? Will you show it to me? Absolutely not. Everything I have been doing has been to prevent you from seeing me as I am. I just think about, I don't know how this happens in my algorithm. There's two things that pop in my algorithm. One more than others, one really rare, and I don't know what this is. But I have no idea why makeup tutorials would come upon across my page. But once or twice they have. And what I found is when people make these makeup tutorials, because I've seen a couple of them. Why not? I don't know. Interesting. It's a. It's an area of life I have no interest in or have no contact point with, but there it is. But they talk about contouring, right? If you guys heard of this. Yes, Contouring. So. And with the whole thing of contouring is what it's. Hey, if you don't like this about your fill in the blank, you can just contour the makeup so that it looks smaller or bigger or whatever how you want it to look. And again, that's the one that doesn't come across my page too often, but the one that does. It is one of those, like, ads before every YouTube video that I ever watch, which is like, the best ever. T shirts for guys with dad bods. Apologize. This is not Advent conversation. But it is, because why? Because they even describe why these are the best T shirts. And they say, because they accent your arms. And they are built in such a way or stitched in such a way that they cover up your dad gut. Your dad belly. I was like, this is fascinating. That's what we all want. Whatever it is that I want to be accentuated. Yeah. Highlight that. And whatever it is, I don't want people to see, like, cover that up. And we spend our lives just covering things up so much. The anxieties of daily life. You know, if I could just be good enough at this, then no one will pay attention to this brokenness in my heart. Why? Because fundamentally, I don't believe the core truth of Christianity. This is what Jesus is saying when he says to avoid these carousing drunkenness, the anxieties of daily life, because fundamentally, I don't believe the core truth of Christianity. What's the core truth of Christianity? The core truth of everything we have is you are loved as you are right now. I realized, here's what just happened with a bunch of. Bunch of you in your minds. I said that. I said, the core truth of Christianity is you are loved as you are right now. And you heard it, and instantly your defenses came up. It's like, well, yeah, but not really. Right, Exactly. So this happened for so many of us. As you heard these words. Well, yeah, but not really. Okay, fine. But I would be more worth loving. I'd be more loved if I was just better if I didn't have These shameful things. If I didn't have this brokenness, if I didn't have these stupid wrappers in my couch cushions, then I'd be fine. That's why, you guys, that's why we spend so much of Advent trying to recreate our youth or trying to capture something from our childhood. Why? Because we look back at our childhood and say, that's when I was easy to love. I can't tell you how many people I talk with who will say, yeah, I believed that. I believed that I was worth loving as I am when I was a kid, but now there is stuff in my life that have disqualified me and that love has been lost because you don't know what I have hiding in my couch cushions. And you can say that I'm worth loving as I am, but no, as a kid, I believed I was worth loving because that's. That was back when I was easy to love. That was back when I didn't have anything hiding in my couch cushions. But now I can't be loved easily. Now, yeah, maybe. Maybe I can be loved, but I can't be loved easily. And so here's the carousing, here's the drunkenness, here's the anxieties, here's the makeup tutorials, here's the diet, here's the dad bod T shirt, here's the exercise, here's the performance. Here's all the things I'm going to fill my life up with so that I don't have to actually stop and face myself. Because this is the truth. I can never face the Lord until I first face myself. That's shame. And this is really. This is what we're talking about. This is shame. If the goal is to see the Lord face to face, but I spend my life trying to cover my face, the first step is to get out from underneath shame. Shame thrives in secrecy. So this. Let's define this. What is shame? I've heard people talk about the difference between guilt and shame, and there's a lot of different helpful definitions. I've heard people say that guilt is when I've done wrong and shame is when I am wrong. And I don't think that's wrong. I don't think that's incorrect. I think that's a pretty good one. I think there's a better definition, a better way to understand guilt and shame, though. I would say this. I would say guilt is when I know that I violated some objective standard. So I know the objective standard is don't lie. And I've lied. So guilt is one I've broken. Violated that objective standard. Shame is different. Shame is when I know that you know that I've violated that objective standard. So. So. So guilt can just be in me. Like, I can just experience guilt because I know I violated this. This. This thing. But shame is relational. Again, think about this. Here's the nieces. Here's the girls. And they already knew. They already knew they were sneaking. They already knew that they were doing something Grandpa told them not to do. They already knew they were having those snacks when they shouldn't have. They knew the couch cushions were full of wrappers. And they didn't feel shame then. They only felt shame when they had to stand in front of the adults. And now, Oh, I know that you know that I've been sneaking. Shame is relational. It's now I see in your eyes that you know this truth about my heart. It's one of the reasons why we want to hide guilt. I don't need to hide because it's. I've got that hidden. I've got that hidden plenty. I'm okay with that. Shame I need to hide because you know, in shame. I need to hide because you can see this. And shame thrives in hiding. That's the truth. Shame thrives when we keep it hidden. Shame thrives in silence. Shame thrives when we don't step out from behind what hides us and let ourselves be seen. So if I believe that, yeah, I was loved when I was easy to love, but I lost that. I can't have that anymore. I don't have that anymore because it's been lost. I have to tell you this. No, it hasn't. On this first Sunday of Advent, you have to realize that. No, it hasn't. It hasn't been lost, no matter what it's been, no matter what it is. I mean, in fact, this is, again, the core message of Christianity. You are loved as you are right now. Jesus. Let's acknowledge the truth that God knew about the couch cushions before you did. That God knew about your wounds before you even knew about your wounds. That God knew about what would cause you shame before you even knew it existed. God knew your brokenness before you had any idea of your brokenness. And in the midst of knowing that, what did he do? He declared, you are worth loving as you are. How does he declare this? He declares this by giving himself, by sending his only son into this world so that you didn't have to hide, but so that you and I could actually get the strength to stand before him, before Jesus himself with our brokenness and stand before him in his goodness and to allow ourselves to be seen. See, we don't need to recreate anything from our past. We don't need to capture anything from our youth, because that hasn't been lost. If it has, it is given to us as long as we let ourselves be seen. Years ago, I remember the story. We have a bunch of. We have. We have a number of priests from Africa here in the diocese, and just such good men. And one had a friend from the continent of Africa. I'm not sure what country. He would come and visit and stay with him. He did a mission at his parish, and this man was telling a story about his own village. And in this particular country in Africa, there's a lot of tribal warfare and just a lot of violence, a lot of devastation. At one point, he shared the story about how the rival tribe had come over to their village while the men were gone. And they basically had kidnapped any woman they could kidnap, from their grandmothers to their mothers, to their sisters, to their daughters. They dragged them into the jungle. And for two weeks, for two weeks, these men violated these women. And they didn't kill them. This is how deeply broken this is. They didn't kill these women. They just violated them sexually. And then they sent them home. And they sent them home with the idea of, here's what we've done. We have torn apart your community, your families, because these women now are done. They're broken, they're lost, they're no good, They've been violated. Something's been stolen from them, and I'll send them back. And that's probably what would have happened. Because what we could imagine is someone comes back from a situation like that, and you sneak back into the village, you sneak back into your own home or your hut, and you just grieve silently and privately and secretly. And in that secrecy, shame just festers. That's not what happened. He described that as these women were released and allowed back to the village, as they saw them coming across the field, these men who were the grandsons and sons and husbands and brothers and fathers of these women, rejoiced. They knew what had happened. They knew what happened, but they rejoiced that these women were back, that their grandmothers and their mothers and their sisters and their wives and their daughters were back. And they brought them into the village. And in the village, they allowed them to share with everybody, with their dads and their grandpas and their brothers and their husbands and their sons. Allowed them to share what they had been through. And those men saw them, heard their stories, got to know like, no, this is the depth of the degree to which they were hurt, abused, violated. And in the midst of that, after they shared like, this is how bad it got. Those men, those grandfathers and fathers and brothers and husbands and sons, were able to say, okay, we know and we see you and we love you. And what was taken from you does not leave you broken. What was taken from you was done to you, does not leave you destroyed. Because shame grows in secrecy. But love kills shame. Those women let themselves be loved. And that's our invitation. This is our invitation. This is our first step, the first step of these 25 days. That's our invitation. Secrecy is where shame festers, but love kills shame. And what is the truth? The truth is you are loved as you are. The truth is God already knew about your brokenness before you even knew about it. The truth is God wants to rejoice over your presence rather than reject you over your shame. Say that again. What we need to know is that God rejoices over your presence more than he rejects you over your shame. And so we step out. We have an opportunity, especially as Catholics. It's pretty incredible because as Catholics, we have the opportunity to tell our secrets. As Catholics, we have the opportunity to step into God's love in a way that is absolutely clear and tangible. And this is the invitation to let yourself be seen so that you can be reminded that you are loved not when you are easy to love, but that you're loved even when you're. Even when it's true that you're hard to love. And this is the invitation. Last thing. The Lord loves you and actually sees you, all of you, and loves you, in order for you to be able to stand before him face to face. But in order to do that, we have to be willing to come to him in our shame and in our guilt. We have to be willing, like those women in that village, not just to come back and just try to pretend that nothing's wrong, but to come home and say, this is what happened. This is a part of my story. Jesus gave us the great sacrament of confession so that we could walk into the confessional and say, okay, bless me, Father. This is what happened. This is a part of my story, and we need to do this because shame grows in secrecy and I'm telling my secrets. Shame grows in secrecy, but love kills shame. It's a sacrament of hope. It's a sacrament of the anti condemnation, sacrament and that's the point of adventure. The point of Advent is not just to get ready for Christmas or to recreate something from our past or capture something from our youth. The point of Advent is to be prepared to stand before the Lord and to see him face to face.