← Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
3/22/26 Autobiography: Epilogue
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Homily from the Fifth Sunday of Lent. Life AFTER his life WITH. Some great stories tell us an important piece of information: where are they now? In our autobiography, after we have experienced "the return"; after we have experienced grace, how do we live? What does our "bonus chapter" look like? What is in our Epilogue?
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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 John Glory to you, o Lord. Chapter 11, verses 1 through 45 Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with the perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus who was ill. So the sisters sent word to Jesus saying, master, the one you love is ill. When Jesus heard this, he said, this illness is not to end in death, but it is for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this, he said to his disciples, let us go back to Judea. The disciples said to him, rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you and you want to go back there. Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of the world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. He said this, and then he told them, our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to wake him. So the disciples said to him, master, if he's asleep, he he'll be saved. But Jesus was talking about his death while they thought he meant ordinary sleep. So then Jesus said to them, clearly, Lazarus has died, and I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him. So Thomas called Didymus said to his fellow disciples, let us also go to die with him. When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away, and many of the Jews who had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died. But even Now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise. Martha said to him, I know he will rise in the resurrection. On the last day. Jesus told her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? She said, yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world. When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly saying, the Teacher is here and is asking for you. As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still where Martha had met him. So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled and said, where have you laid him? They said to him, sir, come and see. And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died? So Jesus, perturbed again came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone lay across it. Jesus said, take away the stone. Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, lord, by now there will be a stench. He's been dead for four days. Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me. But because of the crowd here, I have said this that they may believe that you have sent me. And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, lazarus, come out. The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands and his face wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, untie him and let him go. Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him, the gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Why don't you have a seat? So one of my. A lot of us have Guilty pleasure things, right? So one of my guilty pleasure TV shows, I don't know why, but all of them, almost all of them are surround reality tv. I don't know why, maybe it's me. You're escaping reality by going to reality tv. But one of these shows, I haven't watched it in a while. One of these shows was a TV show called Bar Rescue. And the Bar Rescue, it was always the same setup. Bar Rescue, it's one of those kind of genre like Homestead Rescue where the expert rescuer comes in. So Bar Rescue was always the same story. It was this bar that was struggling, they were in debt, they didn't know how to run a bar. And here all of a sudden, they bring in John Taffer. John Taffer is the expert rescuer. And again, it's always the same. They set up cameras in the bar and he's going to watch. He's doing a stakeout and it's one night, he's in his Escalade out in the parking lot with maybe his assistants. And they sent, I sent some people into the bar to see what they're doing, right? And he watches until he can't take it anymore. He's like, I gotta go in there. He comes in, he just yells at everybody, yells at the staff, yells at the owners, yells at everyone out of here. And he just, you know, flips tables. And the next day is always the same thing. The next day he comes in and he's like, we kind of got off on the wrong foot last night, didn't we? I'm like, yeah, because you just flipped out. Anyways, it's good tv. But I noticed this, that almost every Bar Rescue episode there is at least one of three villains. Now, I say villains like the obstacles, right? It's either the staff, the staff is incompetent, or they're thieves, or something's going on. The leadership, you know, sometimes they don't know what they're doing. It's like, you know, my dad had this bar and he died. So now I'm running the bar and they're in debt and they're bankrupt. All these things. Or it's the itself. Like, it's disgusting, it's run down, it's not the right vibe. Their processes aren't working. So it's one of those three things. And what Jon Taffer does, he's the expert rescuer, right? He trains up the staff. Okay, we're gonna let show you how to do all these things. He coaches the leadership and says, okay, I'm Gonna get you set up so that you can have success. Or he fixes the facility. In fact, it's this. The rescue is like this renovation where it's like they get all this new equipment, maybe a new vibe for the bar that's more, you know, to the. The locale, that kind of situation. It's kind of a fun show, right? Just kind of cathartic. But my favorite part of the show is sometimes they'll do this thing where they'll come back a year later, right? And they're like, okay, where are they now? And I just love seeing this, like, because sometimes. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's like, yeah, we're firing all cylinders now. Your rescue. John Taffer has rescued our bar. But sometimes the where are they now? Isn't. Isn't what people were hoping it would be. Again, after all this, after, like, being this completely free gift, this person comes in, John Taffer, and he. They don't have to pay anything, but they get coached. They don't have to pay anything, but they get trained. They don't pay anything, but they get a whole new renovation of the bar, and it's all done completely for free. And then the question, of course, is, after all this, did it help? After all this massive gift, did it help? What does life look like now? What is life after? Like, this whole Lent. We've been following this series called autobiography. And the reality, of course, of autobiography is that every life is a story and every person is an author. And the question of our lives is this is who will be? Who will we become at the end of the story? And there are some times in some stories where you get a bonus chapter, and the bonus chapter is. Answers the question, what is life like after? What's life after? You know, the gospel today is a heartbreaking gospel of the story of Lazarus. But that's not just the story of Lazarus. It's the story of Martha and Mary as well. You can imagine, because many of you have been there. Here's Mary, Martha, and their brother is sick. And you can imagine they're praying. You can imagine that they're just, okay, we just got to hold out hope. We just got to pray. In fact, they even send word to Jesus. Like, if Jesus would just show up, our prayers be answered. And then you imagine, here's Mary and Martha, who are with Lazarus at the moment of his death. And many of you have been there, right? Many of you have been in that place where the person you love, they take their last breath, and it's that moment. And and there's something. Haven't you been in the situation where it's not just the moment of death, but it's those moments after death where it's just kind of like, I don't know what to do now. We've been praying, we've been holding out hope. Now they're dead. And there's that sense of waiting, you know, waiting for the hospital, the people to come in, waiting for the. The coroner to show up or the funeral home to come. It's just like there's this. That sense of just the moments after death. And then, of course, there's the acceptance of, okay, when you leave the hospital or wherever they had passed away and you go back to your home. And there's that moment of acceptance, the moment of reality where you're trying to figure out the practical decisions. What do we do now? And then there's the funeral, and then there's the burial, and then everything's done. This is what Mary and Martha are. There was the funeral. There was the burial. And now the story is over. Lazarus story is over. This Lent. We've also been following the story of the prodigal son, and we have followed that younger son, right? The younger son who. The picture we get of him is he's been given so much. He has a father who loves him, and he goes to his father and he asks for what he wants, and he gets what he wants. It's remarkable. And then what does he do? He does what he wants, and then he gets what he's chosen. This is the reality, right? Is he takes this property that was given to him, and then he goes and he does whatever he wants, and then he gets what he deserves. Here's a younger son that he wants to live life on his own terms, and then he ends up on his own, and he is starving, and he hires himself out to work for one of the local farmers to tend the swine, and his story is over. And then in both the story of Lazarus and the story of the younger son, we're introduced to the reality of grace. And this changes everything. When we're introduced to the reality of grace, here's Lazarus, right? His story's over. And then Jesus. Here's Lazarus. His story's over. And then grace. So what happens in this. In this gospel today, we hear, we see the heart of Jesus now in two ways. We see the heart of his identity, and we see the heart of his heart. What I mean by that is we see the heart of his identity. He is God. He's The Lord over life and death. And we also see the heart of Jesus. Not just the heart of his identity, but the heart of his heart, that he lets his heart be broken because he cares. And so what does he do? He goes to the tomb. Roll away the stone. They roll away the stone. And Jesus utters three words. He simply says, lazarus, come out. And then John writes. John, who was there, writes, and the dead man came out. You can imagine. Again, this is amazing. This is so incredible that the last line of today's gospel is what? Because of this, many people came to believe in Jesus. And that's the story, right? That's the story. So here's Lazarus, who has been restored. Here's Lazarus who, by God's grace, because of God's love for him, because of God's power over life and over death, he gets a bonus chapter. But there's. There's this line, it's a really interesting line where Jesus, as Lazarus comes out, Jesus tells people, he says, untie him and let him go. And I want to ask the question, go where? And if you've ever thought about this, this is a huge moment in Lazarus's story, right? He was dead. He's alive again. And then what. Have you. Have you ever wondered, like, what did his life look like after? What was life after for Lazarus? Have you ever wondered that? That's the question. Like, where are they now? Right? It's the. It's the bonus chapter. It's what you call when you're writing an autobiography, when you're writing a story. It's what they call the epilogue. Like, and this is the crazy thing, maybe the first time you ever heard that term epilogue. A lot of our students, the first time they ever came across that word, epilogue was the end of book seven of the Harry Potter series, right? You guys know this one where you get to the end of book seven, Deathly Hallows, and it's like 19 epilogue. 19 years later, they're back at, you know, the platform nine and three quarters. They're getting the Hogwarts Express, and turns out that Harry ends up marrying Ginny and Ron ends up marrying Hermione and they have kids and they have cousins, all these kind of things. And it's one of those situations where, like, okay, after the big thing that happened, this is the bonus chapter. After the big thing that happened, it's. Here's where they are now. After the big thing that happened, it's the epilogue. Epilogue actually comes from the Greek, right? Epi, which means upon or after, and logos. It's the afterword. What happens afterwards? What happened to Lazarus after this? Or even what happened to the prodigal son after this? I mean, right, his life is over. But then grace happens. He says, I'll get up and go to my father. I no longer deserve to be called your son. Treat me as one of your servants. He gets up while he's still a long way off. We know the story. His father sees him, runs to him, throws his arms around his neck, kisses him. The son has his speech. We've heard about that. And then the father does something incredible. It's all grace. The younger son's story was over. His story was done. And then the father says quickly. And he does four things, says, quickly, get the finest robe and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger, sandals for his feet. And then they're going to slaughter the fattened calf and celebrate. I think sometimes we can hear those three. The first three things, the last one, the fattened calf, that's just celebration, right? But the first three things that the father gives his prodigal son. The finest robe, the ring and the sandals, they all mean something. I mean, because think about this. In the ancient world, in the first century, you don't have a closet full of fine robes, right? You have in your family. You have one robe. That's nice. You have one finest robe. And the father says, get that robe, the best thing we have, and put it on this kid. It's this free gift. It's grace, the best thing we have, Put it on him. And then the ring. The ring would have been like a signet ring, right? They would have the insignia of the father or the insignia of the family crest. Remember that when the son left, he didn't just want to take his own, have. Have his own property. He didn't just want to have money. He wanted to have nothing to do with the family, nothing to do with the father. And the father says, get that family ring and put it on his finger. And then sandals for his feet. Why? What's that mean? Well, sandals for his feet is servants. They go barefoot. But sons have sandals. And so all three of these gifts, it's all grace. That finest robe. What's that? It's a sign of honor. Here's this kid. He comes back in shame. But the father says, no, no, no. Get our finest. The best thing we have, put it on him. That's a sign of honor. The ring, it's a sign of authority. And the sandals, not only. It's two things. Not only Is it a sign of freedom? Basically, here's sandals. If you want, you can walk away again. It's also a sign of sonship. So there's the finest robe, that's honor. The ring, that's authority. And the shoes, that's a sign of sonship. You see, all of this is grace. None of it is earned, right? None of it's deserved. In fact, the opposite is what he deserves. But here's what the Son is. He is fully restored. And he's given a bonus chapter. He's given an epilogue. And this is the thing. This is what grace does. It's what grace has done for us because we realize it. Because what Jesus has done for us in his life, death and resurrection, because it's all what he's done for us. Because of that, we who are lost, we can be found. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we who are dead can come to life again. And because of what Jesus has done, we who have wandered away or run away, we can be restored. This is the reality. This happens every time we go to confession, every time you and I allow the Father to love us, allow God's grace to meet us. What happens is we're given a bonus story, a bonus chapter where we realize our story isn't over. This is the epilogue. And here's the question, what does life look like now? You know, for this whole pray 40, it's been called the return. What happens after? What is life like after? There's the return because we know this. We know that the younger son, he doesn't come home because he loves the father or he loves the family. He comes home because he's desperate. The question is, will he stay? When he's no longer desperate, will he stick around? Why will he stay? How will he stay? The question is, because the grace that was given to him is free and unearned. What does he do with it? What will he do with the bonus chapter? What will he do with the epilogue? What will he do with grace? I tell our students this story sometimes. A bunch of years ago it was summertime and I was at my parents place over. It's like two and a half hours away on the lake. And I had to get back to Duluth for a daily Mass, a daily mass in the afternoon. And so I had spent the morning on the lake. It was just a great kind of like relaxed time. So I hopped in the car, I'm driving back to Duluth and I just had my shorts, you know, sandals on, that kind of situation, not dressed, you know, clerics and everything. And I was going a little over the speed limit and so I got state trooper Woo, you know, pulls me over so I get, I'm like, shoot dang. And so he's like, ah, going a little fast, you know, where do you live? Where are you going to? I'll tell him all the things. He says, well, what are you in such a hurry for? And I felt so badly because he actually first he said, what do you do? And I was like, I'm a priest. He's like, okay, what are you such in a hurry for? And I was like, I feel so badly. I'm not giving you a line. I'm actually trying to make it back in time for mass. And he's like, oh, okay, okay. Gets back to his squad guard, you know, comes, walks up to my car after a bit and he says this line that just like has lived in my brain ever since. He walks up and says, well, father, the state's going to give you some grace today. And he just gave me a warning and he said, on your way kind of situation. I was like, oh my gosh, that's awesome. That's incredible. I was so grateful for the grace that was freely given to me. I did not deserve it. I deserved a ticket. He didn't give me a ticket. Gave me some grace. And I remember pulling away from the shoulder and getting back on this road and about 10 minutes later I was in pain. I was tortured because I don't know if you ever know this, but 55 miles an hour is really, really slow. Especially when you're used to driving like nine over one of those situations where I was like, I was happy to be given the grace, but I didn't want to drive. Like I was given grace. I was happy to be given the grace, but I didn't want to live it. What does life after grace look like? What does the next morning look like for the younger son? His massive celebration. Given the finest robe, the ring on his fingers, sandals on his feet, fatted calf, incredible. Staying up late. What does the next morning look like? Imagine this. Like this. He wakes up the next day and where does he wake up? Well, he doesn't wake up in the servants quarters. He doesn't wake up in the guest house. This is so important for us. He hasn't been hired by his dad. He's been rescued. He's not hired. He's not one of the servants. Right? His dad even says this. He's not one of the servants. So he's not punished. He's not on probation. We'll see how it goes. He doesn't have to perform. So he's not in the servants quarters. But also he's not in the guest house. Like this is important. He doesn't return to like laziness or entitlement or indulgence. Basically, he doesn't wake up in an all inclusive resort where it's just like, I get to hang out here. Now I'm a pampered prince right now. That's not. He hasn't been hired, he's been rescued. He's not a guest, he's been restored as a son. And he's not hired as a servant and he's not doted on as a guest. So this is the reality that you can look at all those gifts now, all those gifts, they're not given with a condition like you, well, you can have this if you promise to be good. But this is a real relationship. And the Father's essentially saying, these are yours. Not with a condition, but these are yours if you want them. That's what grace does. Grace restores. Restores what? It restores the relationship. But we know this. Every real relationship has real rights. Right? He's given the robe, that's the right. He has honor. Now he's given the ring, he has authority. Now he's given the sandals, right? He's a true son. So every real relationship has real rights. But. But we also know this. Every real relationship also has real responsibilities. The Father gives him dignity, but it's the dignity of having a purpose. You now have a place in this family. Again, the thing is, grace does not remove responsibility. Grace restores responsibility. That in this Father's house, this son, he's not given conditions, he's given belonging. And if this is going to be a real relationship, he has to have both real rights and real responsibilities. Again, remember, he's not in the servants quarters, he's not in the guest house, he's in the family house. What does that mean? That means he's living with the Father. It means he's living with his brother. So we discover this, we discovered the epilogue. We discover that life after means life with. And that's the secret to the epilogue. Life after. It means life with. Every time you and I have been rescued, every time we've gone to confession, every time we've been restored by Jesus, it's not we're restored without conditions, but we're not restored without responsibilities. That our bonus chapter, our epilogue looks a lot like this. It looks a lot like life with the Father. And it looks like life with our brothers and sisters. It looks like life in the church once again. Life after is life with. And this is the last thing again. I really love those stories where they have the. Where are they now? I love the bonus chapter. I love the epilogue. I wonder, what was Lazarus epilogue? There are some theories about his epilogue. There's some small lowercase T traditions about his story. Some people say he went to become a bishop. We don't know. Ultimately, I can imagine that Lazarus bonus chapter, his epilogue was very unique. I imagine he did not go back to living life like he did before Grace. But when it comes to the younger son, I can imagine trying to ask that question, answer that question. Where are they now? If you saw, like, across the screen one year later, what could life. What might life look like if life after actually looks like life with. Here's the epilogue. It's early in the morning. Younger son wakes up and he smells coffee. Kind of smell the smell of coffee wafting down the hallway from the kitchen. And so he gets up, walks out of his room, walks into the kitchen. There's his father, his father making coffee, making the eggs, saying, hey, want some breakfast? Absolutely. Okay, great. Put some. Put some bread in the toaster. Have a seat. How do you want your eggs? Want some coffee? Yeah, have a seat. Here's your mug. They sit down to have some, you know, some eggs, some toast and their coffee. The father's like, hey, how'd you sleep? I heard you and your brother were up really late, but what are you guys talking about so late last night? I was talking about this and that and the other thing. All right, okay, cool. And the younger son says, okay, dad, what's going on today? His father says, actually, you know what? I need you to go next door. Our. Our goats keep getting mixed up with our neighbor's goats. And. And it's going to be a hard conversation. I need you to go over and. And talk with them about this. You think you want to help with that? You need me to come with you? Younger son says, I. I don't know. I. I think I can handle it, but it'd be great if you were there. Great. No problem. We'll go together. After that, we're gonna pick up your brother. We gotta go to the back 40 because the cistern just has all these leaks. We got it. We gotta fix that. Great. Life after is life with. And this could be your epilogue, too. This could be our epilogue. This is what I invite us to all do. This is us today or tomorrow. Morning. My invitation. Every day this week, when you wake up, wake up restored. What I mean by that is wake up knowing you've been given by God's grace a real relationship with the Father, which means there's real rights and there's real responsibilities. My invitation all this week is when you wake up. Just turn your heart, turn your attention to the Father. Turn your heart and your attention to Jesus. Imagine if you're one of the disciples and you know you're camping with him for two and a half, three years. Imagine waking up, Jesus is right there across the smoldering fire, and you wake up, just look at the Father, you look at Jesus. Hey, where are we going today? What are we doing today? My invitation. Every day this week, when you wake up, just let the first thing you do when you wake up, just move your heart to the Father, move your attention to the Father and just say, okay, dad, what do you want today? What do you want us? What are we going to do today? How do you want me to live today? And then live not as a servant, not as a guest, but as a child of your Father, because the truth is because of grace. This is your bonus chapter of your autobiography. Because of God's grace, this is your epilogue. Because of God's grace, your life after is life with.